[Bushbasher]

Good call there Ron, I think you may be right. Yes I did flush the system when I got the car back after the engine swap but the thing is, that washer would have be from the threaded end of the hose that screws onto the tap not the snap lock end where the nozzle connects and there's no way I would have put the threaded end of the hose into the block, it would have been connected to the tap. None of my various hoses in the last 5 years at least have had female threads at both ends and none of the nozzles I've ever had or used have ever been screw on, always snap lock. I did, and still do have a 1/2" canvas hose that has a male thread on the end but it is/was only ever used as an extension so it has a female snap lock fitting on it to connect a regular hose and if I used it on the day it would have been at the tap end of the hose. This can only mean that sometime in that engines past someone has stuck the wrong end of a hose into it. It could have been floating around in there for years I guess and it decided to dislodge itself now. Funny thing is, that engine has dragged a camper trailer about 4000 km and pulled the very same trailer in pulled the other day, fully loaded and gated, from here to NSW and back a couple of times now and it never missed a beat. I wonder what made the washer move now after all this time?

Now I just need to work out how the coolant got out.

Cheers
Bushbasher