Looking for a location. Photo would be great. My Haynes manual says that there is one on either side of the oil pan about 2" up on the block. It shows a picture of a plug that has a raised square head. When I look at mine what appears to be a plug is really about 3-4" above the oil pan on the driver side under the rear spark plug. It is a recessed square drive. Looks like I could remove it with a 3/8 breaker bar. I could not locate one on the passanger side of the block. Perhaps it's behind the starter, but feeling for it I could not find it either.
First, is this the drain plug?
Second, can I drain all of the block from this one side?
I found, doing a search of, a 98 4.6 but the fellas photo shows a 17mm hex drive bolt to be his plug.
Confused on what I'm seeing. Need some help.
BTW, nice site. First timer!

 

Preciate all the tips fellas. No worries, I'll take it from here.

 

it's a weekend/holiday...tomorrow your question should get answered!

i'm curious to know, too. i have the same year/motor as you do. I did this about 2 months ago not knowing i should drain it from the block as well!

 

it can be a bolt or an hex bolt. Check this out.
https://www.f150online.com/forums/sh...d.php?t=199423

JMC

 

which bolt is it on the 5.4? the standard looking bolt toward the left, or that weird squished looking thing? or the maybe bolt under the squished thing?

haha, sorry the terminology is about 4th grade, but i'm having a hard time figuring that out completely

 

Does this help?

JMC

 

advantage of draining from block is to make sure all of the fluid is drained out of the motor block.. I would just do it from the radiator.. refill with tap water... warm up the motor drain and refill with radiator fluid/water mix... or some people do tap water.. drain.. fill with distilled water.. drain.. then refill with radiator fluid/distilled water. either way this would probably flush out the block as well as taking off the bolt from the side of the motor.

 

In case anybody is having trouble noticing, theres an arrow pointing to the bottom bolt (under the "squished thing")

 

Thanks JMC ! That was what I was looking for. I figured it to be as much, but before I pulled it I wanted to make sure. It being a recessed hex drive, looks like about 3/8 to 7/16 or mm eqiv., I didn't have anything to pull it with. I drained the rad, ran a flush chem, flushed with tap several times, running bout 10min. everytime with heater and fan wide open, let cool down for 30min to hour between fills.
Filled with 50/50. I know I took the slow road, but at least I got to enjoy a nice 12 pack along the way!
Sorry for being a bit devilish when I didn't get a timely response. My impatients was due from having limited time with naggin wife, cryin' babies and preping truck fer obx. Thanks for all's help.

 

Don't worry 'bout it. Skin is pretty thick so it doesn't bother me. Glad to see you got it taken care of.

JMC

 

one more stupid question (or maybe two)

do i need to get a chemical to flush it?

and what exactly is the squished thing? That pic isn't all that clear, i can't really tell what kind of bolt i'll be removing to drain (But knowing where its at is good enough)

 

It is a block heater.

JMC