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You can re-tap that hole using a tapered pipe tap. Your friendly plummer might have one in the size you need that he'd loan you. They're not cheap, but not all that pricey, either. I just stopped by the McMaster-Carr page, and you can buy a 1 1/2'' carbon steel tapered tap for around $38.00. Bigger is higher, smaller is less. If you just tapped about one new turn, it would probably catch up enough of the taper to make new threads most of the way (depending on the angle of taper). Then you might have to install a plug that is shortened so that it has the affect of being a bigger diameter at the starting end so that it doesn't get too far into the water jacket. Then again, if you had a friend with a lathe, you could make an oversized plug, have your friendly plumber thread that plug on his pipe threading machine (or thread it on the lathe), install it in your newly cut threads, and it ought to last another 50 years (and probably more, since you'll protect it with some teflon tape). Or you could JB weld a 5/8" hex nut in there, and use a cut-off hex bolt (brass would be nice !)with a paper gasket on it as the plug, and use some heat to remove the JB weld and nut if you ever wanted to fix it more proper in the future. Lots of options... Frank-in-Tallahassee
70D // 855
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