thermostat houing question

[bobscharton]

Hi, first I want to say THANK YOU for the help with the squeaking troble , it was the belt. Now I hav another issue with a water leak. The thermostat housing is a two piece unit? It is the bottom piece that is leaking where it is bonded together. Question is it looks like a real pain to get to it to change it? It looks like the manifold looking thing on top the engine needs to be taken off to hav acess to the thermo housing? I got the top piece off pretty easy but cannot get to the bolts on the bottom piece? Any thoughts on this? Again thanks for any help. All the best Bob
1998 V6 explorer.

 

[swshawaii]

Very common failure. Lower t-stat housing literally comes apart at the seams.
This should be similar to yours, although you may have to remove the intake.

http://bengrosser.com/howto/fordthermostat/