stripped thermostat bolts
 

ever since ive got my 96 its been leaking... i bought a radiator, water pump, and thremostat (the whole cooling system was in bad shape)... so when i take out the therm and put the new one in, the top bolts just kept spinnin and spinnin. now i know why it was leaking but i dont know what to do. should i go with bigger bolts, cake it with silicone, get a new engine, shoot the stupid girl who sold me the car??? Plz help me out...

I have not had this exact problem, but I have had many stripped threads.

Not the end of the world.

Sometimes you can use a slightly longer bolt and find good thread deeper in.

Sometimes you can "chase" the existing thread with a same size thread cutter (basically cleaning up the messed up thread).

But, usually you have to get a thread cutter the next size up, cut the bigger threaded hole and use the next size bigger bolt.

Or you can drill it all out and insert a new thread insert, but that is a little more involved.

thanks... i think that going after the thread with a longer screw is a bad idea considering that its an aluminium block... but im definitly gonna see if i can go with a bigger bolt

A broken socket is no surprise in this case. You might need an impact socket just to keep from breaking it.
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Need Ansa Muffler ?

leave it to a professional in this case. It's pretty hard to do cause you may drill the whole in a weird angle and then you will have a bigger problem. Take it to a machine shop where they have all the tools to do the job correctly.

Dude, reading comprehension maybe?

Or spam (sig). Got my eye on you, bub.