[QUOTE=pawoSD]it began turning, no crunching sounds, so I assumed good to go and steadily and slowly kept removing it.....upon removal I found that about 80% of the threads are flat/not there, they are inside the bolt I took off.
There's still a couple threads at the back of the fitting, and about 1.5 threads right at the tip, but thats all, the rest are mashed down....is this done for? QUOTE]
Yep mine did the exact same thing, I even heated the fitting up until it was red and shocked it with a hammer. The problem with a junk yard cooler is every other car up their is going to have the exact same problem, you would need to find a southern junked car. My cooler was "only" $250 it wasn't to bad.
As to the engine mounts I found you have to undo one bolt at a time and move the heat sheild a bit. It took a little work but they came out. However my car is different from yours.
Radiators leak, at least 300SD radiators are pretty cheap.