Well I customized two 3/8" extensions with my bench grinder. The first one snapped and it fit in that female plug like a glove. The second one I grinded down fit perfectly and I put so much arm into it while the car was in the air I had to stop fearing that I would crack either the area around the plug or the extension would snap. I feared the block cracking since I was using all my strength and it wasn't budging and I am a pretty strong guy...and we're dealing with aluminum and I don't know how strong that area of the block is.
I loosened up the head bolts (lower ones first) and some antifreeze drained onto the floor. Once I got the heads off, I used a siphon with a plastic tube and sucked out any antifreeze still in the block. Some went into the lower headbolt holes but I sucked them out with an old battery hydrometer. Amazingly no antifreeze went into the cylinders...
I installed the passenger head with the new gasket. The new gasket looks better but strangely enough the old head gasket didn't look bad at all. This worried me! I assume the newer gasket (multi layered) plus 25 more foot pounds will do the trick. We'll see...
