My husband was leaving work today and saw a puddle of rusty water from under his truck. The whole bottom of his truck is COVERED orange. We found where we think the leak is coming from. Neither one of us knows much about cars, but my dad, who is a mechanic, said it sounds like a freeze out plug. Is that what this looks like? I know the pictures are bad, it's from the water.

Thanks!

 

That could well be the leak but its correct name is a core plug and its used to plug the hole left from casting the engine block. It got nick named a "freeze plug" because they sometimes were pushed out by a frozen cooling system.
It looks tough to replace cause of all the stuff around it.

 

Thanks! My husband it outside right now trying to get the old one out.

 

Have y'all *ever* flushed the cooling system in that poor engine?

 

use a big screw driver or long punch to twist the plug in its hole. Grab with vise grips and pull it out. Install the replacement with a little sealer around the edges and evenly tap it in.

 

Also be very careful NOT to push the plug into the engine block. It will drop down and become lost inside the engine. I know from experience on a 93 Ranger my son had. We had one hell of a time getting that old plug out of the engine block. Ended up removing the engine. What a job that was

 

^^^^^^

OUCH!!!!

 

They are commonly known as freeze plugs. Be glad its an easily accessable one. I had to do one in a front wheel drive taurus one time that the tranny had to be removed to get to. What a biatch!

 

all that orange stuff is rustfrom the steel the coolant is in contact with. I have had vehicles in the shop that we one by one replaced all the core plugs because the owner is going to sell it and don't want to spend money on it. How ironic. paid about double in the end with all that antifreeze and tows. then we did the pcv heater, the one by the throttle body that the coolant gos through the pcv hose, because he was hydraliced with coolant. Had a heck of a long story after headgaskets looked good to find that leak. Told now is a good time to sell because there was coolant in oil. Got to rebuild motor two weeks later, bearings knocking. Flush the coolant on scedule it was a 99' 5.4