It seems I'm leaking coolant from this brass washer on my 99 Dakota 3.9 V6
I recently changed out a couple frost plugs which were definitely bad but I still seem to be leaking coolant from that washer area. Any tips?

 

Is that an expanding plug in the back of the head??

 

It is on the back yeah but all the other expansion/freeze plugs on the rest of the engine looked like this.

 

Yep, and that's likely what it was supposed to replace...... The rubber expanding fellers stick into the hole, and you tighten down the nut to get it to seal, and hold itself in place. You *might* be able to just tighten it up some, and solve the issue. Putting the correct plug in there would be a better idea..... I suspect it was installed simply because of where it is..... hard to get to.

 

Sweet thanks, I went out and tightened it up and put some cardboard underneath to see if it's still leaking at all let's hope it works

 

Warm the engine up so the cooling system is pressurized, that's the real test.

 

What HeyYou said...all my side plugs are thread-in's, i was able to stamp the front plugs in, and still have the stock rear plugs. Have to damn near pull the engine to change any but the front 4.

 

Hey so I added coolant tonight and let it run for a while and it seemed fine. I came back out about an hour later to check on the levels/ top it off and when I removed the radiator cap it started spewing coolant from here. Any ideas what that could be?

 

factory freeze plugs rotted out. Luckily mine did it parked in a parking lot...drove to the store fine, went in the store, came out to a lake of green under the truck...2.5+ gallons of lake of green. Store wasn't too happy with me, neither was the rollback operator.

There is a freeze plug behind each motor mount. V6 has 2 on each side (1 exposed and 1 hidden), V8 has three (2 exposed and one hidden).

Replacement freeze plugs are brass. Factory ones are steel.