One of my ongoing projects is to finish rebuilding a 3.8L Buick V6. It was originally intended to go into my '84 Mazda B2000 pickup. The original engine was carbureted, but when John Myrick let me have the Bosch L-Jetronic system off his '82 Celica Supra and even tossed in the factory wiring diagrams, who could pass it up? I picked up an FWD buick intake for $25 and began working on things. I whittled an adapter to mate the Toyota throttle body to the Buick intake; the Toyota throttle body was substantially bigger than the Buick one. Then I started to put the coolant temp sensors in the intake...

The Bosch sensors were a straight metric thread, intended to be sealed with copper or aluminum crush washers. Metric taps were available in the correct size, but they cost over $20 each, and, of course, both sensors had different threads, even though they were both water temp sensors. *Because*, that's why...

Anyway, some photos below of the sensor fangle. More to come...

Fortunately the Toyota thermostat housing was removeable. Big and bulky too. The first step was to meet the bandsaw to remove excess cruft.

Next I made mandrels to hold the sawed-up pieces of casting. Fortunately the threads were close enough to use some inch-size threaded rod I had handy. We're out of sequence here; the part on top is finished, the one on the bottom is ready to be turned.

Getting ready to cut the part you see finished in the above picture.

And of course, here it is, finished. Diameter is .750, 3/4 inch.

Making aluminum chips here. Since I don't have a really good grip on the part because of the mismatched threads I'm taking it easy with shallow cuts. This is the smaller mandrel.

Here are the finished sensor bungs. The next step is to drill the NPT- threaded holes in the Buick intake out to 3/4". I bought some "aluminum solder" rods from the local welding shop; this should be an appropriate application for a low strength joint.

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