super a cooling help

got an old super a from an old guy. pulled the only bolt i could find to let the water out. located just back of the lower water hose from the radiator. there doesnt seem to be any threads to put the bolt back in . HELP

Not sure what you pulled out there, friend. First thought is that if it threaded out, it ought to thread back in???

Some SAs had water pumps, most did not. The intended drain for the system was a plain old 3/8" pipe nipple about 4 inches long threaded into the bottom of either the pump or the inlet casting, whichever you have, that then passed down vericcally through a hole in the front casting so you could get to it and it would drain to the ground. It was closed by a cap (not a plug) on the bottom end.

Trick is, with field repairs and alterations made over the years, you're apt to find just about anything there for hardware. The original cap on that pipe nipple had Mickey Mouse ears, like a wingnut, on it. That often got replaced with a plain pipe cap. If that's wehere you're working, you might also find a 3/8" pipe plug either in a union wound onto the lower end of the pipe,or, if there's no pipe at all, a pipe plug directly into the drain outlet on the bottom of the pump or inlet casting.

A more challenging scenario is that somebody may have just wound a machine bolt into the tapered pipe thread and got it to seal, but buggered the threads in the process, which would explain your difficulty in getting it back in.

Bottom line, if nothing's broken, the only place that removing one plug or cap that should drain the coolant is from whatever plumbing parts you find on the underside of that pump or inlet.

If you pulled something else, come back and let us know, and one of us can help figure out where you are and what you need to do next.

and modification of the advice.

Looking around different parts catalogs, water pump would have had the straight pipe down. My book for As (not SAs) shows NO pipe, and a plug instead of a cap, that went directly into the drain hole in the bottom of the lower inlet. The catalogs are from different years, so maybe the pipe and cap replaced the plug on one or both at some point in time.

Again, if that's where you found the bolt that allowed it to drain, it kind of reinforces my suspicion that somebody might have wound/forced a straight-threaded bolt into a tapered pipe thread. A hint to that would be if your bolt was a hex head. Not true in every case at all, but MOST pipe plugs of that era had a square or recessed head. (The original in this case had the same Mickey Mouse ears that the pipe cap did.)

If that is the case, all is not lost -- the taper of the pipe thread might make for an easy fix. A 3/8" pipe plug is a common hardware item. get hold of one and see if it will thread back in. By the pipe thread being tapered, there's a good chance that a regular bolt would only have messed up the top or the bottom of the thread, with luck not the whole thing. In that case, a good new plug with sharp threads might just bite and do the job. Be sure to use some plain old pipe dope on it, and if it will thread in, it should hold, especially if your cooling sytem is of the non-pressurized type.

If it doesn't hold, you may have to remove the pump/inlet (two bolts) and put it on the bench to either clean up/restore the threads or drill out and rethread for a larger plug. (If there's enough thread left to get a 3/8" NPT tap started, you should be able to just restore the thread by cutting it in a little deeper -- IIRC cutting threads in cast is best done dry, i.e., without oil on the tap -- a better option in my book than enlarging to take a 1/2" plug. That and a gasket should take care of it.

Thanks Guys. I think I may be able to solve the problem now. Although I don't feel any threads, but I'll figure something out.
Miller Farms