So I am working on taking my 235 engine apart. I have removed one freeze plug on the front, 2 on the side, and 1 on the back. Are those all of the freeze plugs on the engine? The reason I ask is on the back there appears there are still 2 more freeze plugs - one fairly large one and one really small one. I have attached a picture of the back of the engine (where the bell housing attaches) and you can see what looks like the 2 freeze plugs. If these aren't freeze plugs, what are they and do I need to remove them? The other question I have is when I was removing the flywheel, there were 6 bolts holding it on. Beneath every 2 bolts was a metal clip for a total of 3 metal clips. I have attached some pics of these clips. Are these clips necessary and what is their purpose? The reason I ask it the corners of them were bent up on every bolt and it made it a real chore to get the bolts off. Do I need to put them back when I reassemble? They create such a problem for removal that I think I would rather not put them back on.
Notice the ears on the clips? Those were meant to be bent up beside the flat on the bolt head to keep them from backing out.. Why not re use them? Simply use a sharp chisel to lift the ear and tap it gently with a hammer against the side of the bolt head. yes there are more freeze plugs back there. remove and replace those two especially.. Otherwise you will get to pull the engine at a later date when they leak.
The very large freeze plug is the rear cam plug and the small one is the plug at the rear of the main oil gallery. Both of these plugs are exposed to oil all the time so they seldom rust. The cam plug is replaced if you have the engine cleaned by hot tanking or chemical cleaning because the cam bearings are removed to do so and the cam plug has to be removed. Every manufacturer used the locking clips up into the 1950's and a few longer if the engine was a continuation of an old design. They then went to star washers, some with external teeth and some with internal. Now most use flare head bolts with locking searations on the underside of the flare. You can use your original bolts by cleaning squeeky clean and putting a drop of RED Lok-Tite on the threads just before screwing in. Red will require heating before removal which is no problem on flywheel bolts and I trust it further than BLUE in an area that goes through harmonic vibrations on every acceleration-deceleration cycle.
