Hi all, you all have been incredibly helpful to me as I have navigated resorting my '91 land cruiser so I wanted to share a lesson learned so hopefully someone else can avoid the problem I created for myself. I am in the middle of overhauling my cooling system and decided to replace the thermostat in the thermostat housing even though it was working properly. The thermostat housing consists of two parts made of aluminum (16303-61020 upper and 16304-61030 lower) that sandwich the thermostat together along with a bunch of sensors. The two parts are held together by (4) steel bolts (91611-60845). In removing the bolts, I broke one off in the aluminum housing very easily - probably only applying less than 20lbs of torque and then like a moron I decided to pry the upper part of the housing off the bottom, breaking part of the hole for the bolt while leaving the bolt still stuck in the bottom half.
The three other bolts that I was able to remove were extremely corroded and I am surprised I actually only broke one of the four. What was going to be a cheap repair replacing the $20 thermostat has turned into a much bigger problem as I discovered that the upper and lower housing units are very difficult to obtain in NA. I'll have to order each separately from Japan and Australia. Even aftermarket is not readily available in NA.
I am going to attempt to extract the broken bolt from the bottom half (I never have luck doing so) and maybe JB weld the top part. But I'll probably be forced to buy the whole housing from abroad.
For anyone tackling this project, I'd proactively apply lots of PB blaster days ahead of time and apply heat. That way you'll know you did everything you could have even if they still break.
Good luck!
The three other bolts that I was able to remove were extremely corroded and I am surprised I actually only broke one of the four. What was going to be a cheap repair replacing the $20 thermostat has turned into a much bigger problem as I discovered that the upper and lower housing units are very difficult to obtain in NA. I'll have to order each separately from Japan and Australia. Even aftermarket is not readily available in NA.
I am going to attempt to extract the broken bolt from the bottom half (I never have luck doing so) and maybe JB weld the top part. But I'll probably be forced to buy the whole housing from abroad.
For anyone tackling this project, I'd proactively apply lots of PB blaster days ahead of time and apply heat. That way you'll know you did everything you could have even if they still break.
Good luck!
