Previa Engine Access

[edmiikk]

Our venerable Previa Solair '95 is sadly parked in the drive going nowhere.

A local garage diagnosed a leaking engine plug, located on the top of the

engine passenger side. And then said the whole engine+gear box would have

to come out to fix it (£600+!). The leak fixing magic fluid did not work

(lost a night's sleep crawling back home from Swindon, having stowed

distraught family in a Day's Inn for the night).

Question is how to get easy access to that engine plug, or am I

really caught between a rock and hard place?

[KPARRIS-JONES]

Do you mean a core plug?

[edmiikk]

Do you mean a core plug?

Think so

[KPARRIS-JONES]

The Core plugs sit on the back of the block of an engine and they are very hard to get to. I bet her is right in saying the engine has to come out for you to remove it...

[edmiikk]

The Core plugs sit on the back of the block of an engine and they are very hard to get to. I bet her is right in saying the engine has to come out for you to remove it...

Arrrgh = was afraid you would say that.

Sod's law, the car is otherwise in good nick.

Will try a chemical solution but have low expectations.

[KPARRIS-JONES]

90% of the time those chemical solutions are a load of cack, but I really hope you can get it sorted out.

To be honest you could try and do it yourself... take some time out and remove the engine and get a techy in to replace the Cor e Plug. It'd be a shame to get a car scrapped for the sake of such a small failure. However I do understand the cost will be very high if your only option is to have someone else do it for you. :(

[edmiikk]

Thanks for the advice.

The MOT/Service garage, sent me to a small specialist shop, i.e. all the jobs that the MOT shop

doesn't want. He wasted £70 on a chemical treatment whilst telling me that the job

was too hard to do without an engine removal. The obvious solution was to cut a hole in the

passenger floor panel to get access, but he said is was a "double skin" so could not be done.

Anyway the Previa sat on the drive and eventually the Battery went flat and scrapping it

was looming. I thought I would give it once last chance and with wife and daughter in

the other car as a back up team, and carrying several litres of water set off for Egham,

home of Wards garage. Had to stop every 5 minutes to refill the engine, driving with

windows open and heater full on, and stalled it once.

Wards then proceeded to fix it by removing a section of floor, so all credit to them:

there is at least one decent, honest garage still operating in the South East.

I have to say it was a joy to drive mended Previa back home. Like having an old friend

come back from the dead. We have had many good times in that car.

The mechanic at Wards explained that Previas have a design fault - the coolant and oil

tanks are too far from the engine. So the coolant is never cleaned properly and core

plugs fails.

[bothwell_buyer]

Could be an idea to use a higher concentration of anti-freeze which also does the job of providing better cooling and cleaning.