Well, I wanted to flush out my radiator because it hadnt been running with any coolant. As i undo the hose clamp on the thermostat housing & try to slide the house off, I notice a big chunk of the aluminium is missing off the housing - it had coroded away. When i disturbed it, i destryoed the seal it had & couldnt get it back on - not enough meat for the hose to hold on to.

I managed to borrow a thermostat housing from a fellow member (thanks Immy!) while i sorted mine out. After running it for a few days, i noticed there was still a leak - the gasket wasnt sealing properly. I decided to take it off & cut a new gasket. The top bolt came off fine. The bottom bolt was quite tight & as i was trying to undo it, the head snapped off!

Had to take the grill & radiator out, get a drill in there & try to drill it out. An "easy-out" wouldnt budge the bolt so i decided to cut new threads with a tap. slowly going, i was almost done & the tap goes & breaks it the blasted hole! Cant drill that now! Sat there, staring at it for about an hour not knowing what to do!

So, i checked to see that there was enough meat for me to drill a small hole in to the head - slightly off centre to the bolt. Thought it was ok, drilled the hole, took a 6mm selftapping screw, slapped sum washers on it so it would hold the housing securely, screwed it in , bolted everything back up & packed away my tools just as the sun was going down.

That was about 2 months back. it was still working like that when i took it in to the panel beaters - now that the engines coming out, i can work on ti properly! (or just get an a14 head & save myself the hassle!)