drilled into my water jacket accidentally need some advice.

[01explorerv801]

any way make a long story short i have been in the process of replacing my passenger side ex manifold, and gasket due to massive corroding and nasty blow through, any way after pb blasting the **** out of it for 2 days i still ended up snapping 2 of the bolts by spark plug 3. so today i started to drill the bolts out because it was the only option left. so i got the first bolt drilled and tapped, started with the second next size up drill bit and wham coolant starts dripping out.... wtf ... lol.. i have had it up to hear with this lemon. anyway i luckily had a sheet of lead from my old body shop so i cut of 3 3/8" circles pressed one in all the way into the whole and used one of the old nuts to press it in, repeated this with 3 pieces total. any way, it has stopped leaking, but i still want to put some sort of sealant or something to make sure it doesnt leak.

what should i use? rtv, exhaust fix puddy? any ideas guys? i want to get this done tomorrow so i can take it to work to make sure it drives correctly.

also i have 2 sets of gaskets for this thing, the ones that came with the manifold are these thin metal looking ones similar to stock. the others i bought are from pepboys and look to be made out paper and are thicker than the other ones. which ones should i use?

 

[Dilbert5]

I would not panic at this point. I would suggest useing a good gasket sealant, (same as the one the recomend for the water pump bolts). And then just to be sure, I would put a parcial bottle of bars leak into the rad. I would also prefer the metal exhaust gasket, over the paper one. But I would put a flat edge across the manifold, and make sure that the sealing surface is in good shape.

 

[01explorerv801]

alright great, i will do all those things. i will put some rtv in the morning let it settle while i am at work, will pick up some radiator sealant to. lets say the block isn level what should i do in that case?

 

[Dilbert5]

As far as the block being level, I would look for burrs, or something like that from the flange surface. I would quess you would have more problems with the exhaust manifold flange being off.

 

[01explorerv801]

i took a dremel and attached a circular 80 grit pad on it and cleaned up around the ports. the only thing i am worried about is that some spots where i had my original leak look like they had more meet taken off then on others... should i put a piece of 80 grit on a piece of 2x4 and go over it again?

 

[01explorerv801]

also i was thinking of retaping the 2 holes i drilled and tapped originally with a 7/16 tap, vs keeping the 3/8. i am going to try to keep things i have now, but worse case scenario if i had to retap a larger hole could i do it with out taping into anything vital? i am just worried that one of my threads might strip where i added the lead inserts

 

[Dilbert5]

I would definatly try to clean up the sealing surface as much as possible. I do not know how much metel you have before you will hit something important.