Need help diagnosing a leak.

[jbordelon]

My ford 4100 has a leak coming from the bottom center of the tractor. It is very clearly a coolant leak. It's coming from (if you're looking under the tractor from the side) the small vertical section of the body between the front of the transmission housing and the back of the oil pan (not coming out of the oil pan though).

A guy who usually knows what he's talking about says it's the freeze plugs, and we need to separate the tractor to get at them. Is that likely?

Please help.

 

[Jerry/MT]

I believe he"s correct. There is a welsh plug on the backside of the engine that seals a core hole in the cooling jacket.

 

[jbordelon]

(quoted from post at 10:38:20 03/17/12) I believe he"s correct. There is a welsh plug on the backside of the engine that seals a core hole in the cooling jacket.

What a drag. I'm not looking forward to splitting the tractor. Any idea how many replacement plus I need and where I can buy them? I tried searching online but didn't have much luck.

 

[showcrop]

There was a thread a few months back about this. There were responders who said that they had replaced these freeze plugs on four cylinder Fords without splitting.

 

[RodinNS]

Yeah... there's a couple of frost plugs in the back of the block. You need to split her to get the lower one as it's hidden by the flywheel and adapter plate.

Rod

 

[jbordelon]

Well, we did it. You can see how bad the thing was leaking. It was definitely a learning experience, though!