Thermostat fitting 6/1

[veggie]

Ref: 6/1 thermostat mods

My parts are now machined to accept a thermostat and are ready to bolt to the engine.

Problem: The hole in the cylinder head casting in quite rough and off-center to the thermostat flange.
The head casting interferes with the small portion of the thermostat which extends in to the head.

I do have a die grinder which I could use to open up one side of the casting but I don't know a good trick for preventing the filings from falling into the head's water jacket.
I only need to remove about 3/8" from one side of the hole to make every fit nicely(see picture).

A] Anyone else have this problem and how did you solve it?
B] Anyone have a trick for grinding this opening without the filings going into the head?

The picture below shows the area I need to grind....

Thanks,
Veggie

[Ronmar]

Got a shop vac?  Plug in the hose so that it blows air, and plug the end of the hose into the lower cylinder coolant port.  This will blow air out thru the hole you are grinding in, and should cause most of the filings from the die grinder/rotary file to be blown back out of the upper head port as you grind.  Failing that, you can wash them down from the top with a garden hose and flush them out the bottom.  But, as Jens mentioned, they realy are not going to hurt anything...

[Henry W]

Ronmar,

That is a great idea!! I can see that will work for other things such as pulling an injector out of a dirty engine and keeping sand out of the combustion chamber.

Henry

[veggie]

Ronmar,

Good idea!
I didn't have a vac available so here's what I ended up doing...
I fed a small rag into the port to fill the cavity.
I stuck one of those "rare earth" magnets to the head just outside the port (very powerful).
Then I ground the hole until my thermostat cleared the head (with a bit extra to spare).
I think the magnet caught about 98% of the filings. I had a ball of filings around the magnet when I finished.
Some settled on the rag near the entrance, but that came out when I removed the rag.
Overall, it stayed quite clean.
Here's the result....

Veggie