'59 Plymouth Forum

Antifreeze can get into the crankcase via a bad head gasket too, I believe.
How well does the car run? any white smoke out of the tailpipe?

Well, Faulkner does use a little oil -- but not a lot, so I do occasionally see a whiff of smoke. But no, the head gaskets are fine, no leaks into the crankcase (with telltale beads on the dipstick). It's all under the car. Fortunately for me, I believe it's the one directly above the starter, which is locked in by the lead pipe

Dan

I happened to have to pull my starter and like Faulkner said, the exhaust pipe blocks clear access to two of the three starter bolts. I did manage to get starter bolts out with a lot of tedious wrenching and turning with my finger tips. One of the bolts backs out hitting the exhaust pipe. That bolt and the starter have to come out together and reverse the process when re-installing. Once bolts were out, the starter will come right out. I am thinking of re-routing the exhaust pipe to the outside of the torsion bar and thereby making oodles of room to access the three starter mounting bolts in the future. (The exhaust pipe on the passenger side of my car is already routed to the outside of the torsion bar and crosses underneath the torsion bar on its way to the muffler. )

Regarding the engines soft plugs, I also had two of them leaking antifreeze, so I pulled them all out (both sides) and replaced them with expanding rubber plugs. Problem solved. (It did require me to removed the starter to get at the one located just above it) A tip on using these expanding rubber plugs, after you drive the car for a week or two, go back and retighten these soft plugs once they take a set.