Block heater
 

Recently pulled my motor to change rear seal and freshen up, additionally I scrapped the headers and install RAM AIR III exhaust manifolds. Anyway the original block had one of those heaters installed on the front right frost plug. Put the motor back in and installed the new manifolds. Was under the car last night and noticed that the right manifold is pressed up against the block heater. (even cracked the outer plastic a little)

I know that when I fire it up it is going to partially melt the outer plastic heater unit. I am hoping that this will not leak.....I beleive that the outer part of the block heater which is plastic just housed the chord & electrical heating element and that internally it is a sealed plug.

Don't want to pull everything off and lift the motor to install a frost plug. Anyone have any knowledge or experience with these frost plug block heaters? The plug and chord was snipped off years ago. Do I need to worry about a leak????????

Thanks
Bob

The ones I have seen are metal and seal with an o-ring. They have a toggle bolt of sorts that draws it up into the cavity and the o-ring gets a tight fit into the bore. I would keep an eye on it, but it really can't go anywhere. I don't think it can even leak unless the heat effects the o-ring.