DaveT

For drilling the stainless, or moderately hardened steel, I found there are bits for the purpose. They are solid carbide. Must be used in a drill press or milling machine, not a hand held drill. I drilled a hole in a hardened stainless steel part with one. The kind of stainless that instantly dulls even a cobalt steel drill. The drills aren't that bad price wise, but if you want to tap the hole.....

I don't have 1st hand experience with this, but have read a number of threads - knocking in ea82T is quick death..

Yes, but this is typical of air in the system. If all is well, the amount of air will diminish over a few drive cycles. Re read my previous posts, they cover how to monitor what is going on, and determine the earliest beginning of headgasket failure or something else. If the air does not reduce over a few drive cycles, headgaskets are suspect. A small leak can cause this also. I run a zero pressure radiator cap to eliminate that possibility. As the number of over temperature events increases, the headgasket leak from combustion chamber to cooling system will get worse. Eventually there will be no question.

Rust free is rare around here also. CT. I have 2) 4WD 3 speed auto wagons. Start collecting parts. Many are NLA. Watch ebay for a FSM. Learn how to do your own repairs.

Avoid driving it with that going on. IF you must, turn on lights, blower, etc. to load it down. The times I have had over 14V have been caused by the voltage regulator, which is in the alternator, going bad. I have zero experience buying alternators, as I rebuild mine. Possibly a bad ground. Possibly a bad alternator. I have read more than a few threads on here where the new alternator was also bad. But if the problem is exactly the same, more likely something else. Check the connections between the alternator and the fusible link box and the battery. Just a guess, not sure if an intermittent connection there could cause this or not. If the battery cranks the engine ok, I tend to not blame it.

If your original cv / front axels were damaged by the towing incident, look for used oem. Clean regrease and re boot. Lots of threads about this. For driveshafts - the one from the transmission to the rear differential, find a local driveshaft shop. A good one can get parts and rebuild them.

These engines are made to spin fast. 4000 rpm is no big deal. Lugging them is a bigger problem.

Yes, the first couple times many years ago I let one get low on coolant. Learned the hard way. I've owned several EA82 powered wagons now. Some came with existing issues. Been there done that as far as not wanting to give in and do the headgasket job. The limp mode has been used to buy time while resealing a spare engine. That good engine eventually is moved to a body in better condition when the original gets too far gone from rust.

It all depends on how bad the damage is. I had tried the air spark plug thing, long time ago. Nothing conclusive. Same with the pressurising the radiator. The pressure of the fuel exploding is far higher than an air compressor. Thats why the first sign is bubbles in the coolant . my leaks were just beginning at that time. Yes, eventually when the failures are bad enough, you will get a detectable result. By the time one spot has failed to that point, it would not suprise me for other failures to have begun. You can try lot of things. The risk is loosing all the time and have to do it all again. I have limped one along for as much as 6 months by using a zero pressure radiator cap, and adding water before every drive. And no long dtives. The leaks slowly got worse. In the end, they have needed new headgaskets.

Beware of using fuel line for coolant! I did that once, many years ago. It failed in a fairly short time. Chemical properties are different for fuel vs coolant.

Yes, the typical beginning of head gasket failure is small amount of exhaust gas injected into the cooling system. When it first starts it is so small that the tests don't detect it, but you can by monitoring the coolant level before every drive. Once you have experienced this a couple times, you know.. BTDT. It slowly gets worse, until coolant is spewing out and you can't go anywhere before it's overheating. More over normal temp excursions while low on coolant accelerates the failure. By this age and likely mileage, it is due for new head gaskets & up reseal anyway. No way I know of to determine which cylinder is leaking first. No evidence of coolant into the cylinders until much more blown, and you won't be able to drive by then anyway. Only once did I have a head gasket fail so bad as to leak coolant into the crank case, and that was a bad overheat, and likely a few mild ones before. Replace them both, they have been compromised already. Resurface the head is a must. Be sure the radiator is in top condition - especially that all of the fine fins are connected to the tubes, and not blocked by dirt on the outside, or good for nothing [causes more trouble than it fixes on these engines] stop leak on the inside. Make sure all 7 cooling system hoses are not close to 30 years old.... Yes, 7 hoses.

I'm pretty sure that the threads are cut into a stamped nut that was welded to the sheet metal. I would not try to weld then drill and tap... Unless you are an expert welder and know what alloys to use. There are solid thread repair kits similar to helicoils that I would be inclined to look at. Try a search on McMastercarr.com . If there is space, maybe sneak a regular nut in behind the stripped one?

Possibly just didn't get all the air out . Also, this is symptoms of headgasket beginning to fail. Over heating, or even over normal temperature , while low on coolant is very bad for headgaskets. There are a lot of threads about this on this forum.

To check the coolant in the radiator without opening the cap - squeeze the upper radiator hose sharply, and listen for the giggle pin and air gurgles. Once you do this a few times, you can begin to determine by the sounds the amount of air in the system. There should be very little to none. When you open the cap, it intruders a small amount of air, so it can make it difficult to determine if there is a problem developing when the leak or damage is very small.

Be sure to watch the coolant level like a hawk. Like before every drive. Water sound in the dash means very low on coolant. My experience has been that after such an event as you describe, low coolant + over normal temperature, is that the head gaskets are damaged. It is a matter of time and cycles until the leak gets big enough to be noticable if you only check weekly. And each low coolant overheat accelerates the failing. Doesn't hurt to be certain before resealing, but be watchful to avoid worse overheat damage.