water pump housing bolts

[treed2@u.washington.edu (T. Reed)]

Okay, so I just want to re-iterate the advice that somebody posted here a
couple of days ago:

The key to getting the water pump to water pump housing bolts out is HEAT.
And lots of it!

The day after I ordered a new pump and housing from mark@aab, I found my
old junk water pump (and housing).. which was unfortunate since I just
wasted extra $$ on a pump with a housing. But I decided to spring on the
opportunity to seperate the pump and housing now so the spare housing
would be ready for the next time I need to swap a water pump.

I torched the bolts for about 60 seconds and applied gentle force with a
ratchet. I broke off 5 bolts and got 3 out.. now I could see why people
told me to get the whole pump. This was going to be a pain..

So, I got the pump off and scraped off the gasket. Each of the broken
bolts had about 1/4" of bolt sticking out of the hole still so I got my
itty bitty vice grips and tried turning them. No luck there, so I put the
propane torch on them. And this time, I propped it up on some pliers and
went away to do something else a few minutes. When I came back the first
bolt was red hot. I dripped some water on it (I read somewhere that doing
so can help loosen bolts) and then let it heat back up. Then I flipped it
around and heated the back side of the bolt. Got my vice grips ready, took
the torch off it, and the bolt turned right out.

I did this same procedure for the other 4 bolts and they turned right out.
No real pressure needed on the vice grips.. I did a quick tap job on the
threaded holes to renew the threads and then put the housing in storage.

Anyway, heat is key.. and lots of it! Get the hottest torch you've got and
keep it on there for 5 minutes per bolt - the suckers will come out
eventually.

-Toby