Hello Good folks.

I removed the LH down pipe today in order to replace and reseat the crush gaskets in between the down pipe and the manifold. Thank God the worst didn't happen... Took two hours only but one of the four bolts,,, the treading partially detached and came with the nut... On all, bolts stayed in the manifold,,, bolts released and were reused. They were new from when I installed catless pipes one and a half years ago.

A year and a half ago (from memory) two of the four bolts/studs came with the nutts. HAH,,, Sounds like ****. Anyways

My question is,,, and my ears bleed thinking about the task, what if I wanted to, or worse, needed to turn out the bolts in the manifold end of things to replace them?

 

Take the manifolds off is my advice. My manifolds are currently away getting ceramic coating and I removed all my studs and will be replacing with new ones and then using brass nuts on re-assembly. The studs took a fair bit of pursuading and required the use of a large vice and plenty of space to apply leverage, even then I had to hit them with the induction heater and penetrating oil a couple of times, I also had to tease them out to avoid breaking so it took a while.

Make sure to hit the manifold nuts with a good penetrant for a few days and let it sit (don't burn it off) especially the lower ones as you can't really get a socket on them - a couple of them only an open ended spanner fits and that can cause challenges in itself ... oh and on the side with the starter good luck - the only way I got a spanner on the manifold above the starter was to remove said starter the top 12point bolt holding said starter was fun even with the engine out - whack that socket on good as far as it will go !! - had been tightened by the hulk and required an impact wrench to pursuade it to come loose.

Getting the studs out with the manifolds in the car would generate a new language dictionary I think, you may get away easy but if you mess up you're pulling the manifolds anyway.

 

Brotha,,, with all due respect,,, all that ain't what's happening here... Isn't your engine out of the car? Mine ain't, and I work on the street Infront of my apartment. Generally, if I start something it needs to be done or close to done before nightfall. But thanks for all that info

I'm trying to figure out (because I know there will be a next time) what I'll be looking at to replace the nut and bolt/stud completely... Specifically the bolts. I am going to look more closely tomorrow but it think the RH side may be a leaking as well. I did an incomplete/poor job on my learning run at installing my first set O downpipes a while back. When starting from cold I was get that familiar TICKING/SNAPPING sound as exhaust gas escaped. Once hot, sound went away. I fixed the LH today... Sounds so much better.

If I can feel confident with a method for getting the downpipe stud/bolt out of the manifold I may just order the parts and wait a week for the RH and replace the studs/bolts completely instead of using the old studs.

How does one back those bolts out? Are they reverse threaded?

 

And after they are out (God willing) seems like it would be a good idea to run a thread cutter up the open hole... All kinds of ugly

 

It would, make sure it is a good quality plug tap and you 'feel' for the thread start, rotate tap until it feels like it drops into a groove - takes a bit of practice to get the feel. I'll measure the thread on my old ones but I can't guarantee mine will match yours as mine was in a period where the metric switch was happening, they are threaded same as any other bolts, anticlockwise to undo.

And yes my engine is out of the car, getting these studs out in situ all I can say is good luck, get a high end stud extractor but don't play gorilla, make sure you have the new ones you won't be re-using the old, go into this eyes open because destroying the threads on the outside is likely so you will be committed once you start - and don't waste your time with the two nut trick - that would not have worked on mine.

 

I'm not sure it will work in this situation, but the general way to remove a stud is this: Take two nuts and thread them onto the stud. Use two wrenches to tighten them against each other. Then turn the inner nut as if you were unthreading it. The outer nut will hold it in place and it will turn the stud. Inserting studs can be done with the same method in reverse.