Pulled the passenger side manifold today. 1 stud come out clean, 6 broke leaving 1/2" exposed, 2 were already broke below the surface, and 1 I broke below the surface. My friend is gonna lend me a 90° drill. Not feeling confident in myself drilling these suckers out, but it's gotta get done. Wish me luck!

 

Do you have access to a wire welder? You can use them to weld nuts to the leftover portion of the studs and turn them out with a socket.

 

Give this a read, I did it - anyone can do it. Didn't have much luck with welding, easy outs got me one, then cost me a huge set back when one broke. I extracted all 20 studs after cutting them off myself to remove manifolds. Final count after cutting all 20 nuts off the studs was

15 removed with a titan stud extractor
1 removed by drilling a pilot hole and using an easy out
4 drilled completely out using 5 different cobalt bits all one size larger than the previous, starting at 1/8 and ending at 1/4

Used a dremel and the homemade centering bit shown in the thread below to center the 1st hole. You must have a right angle drill and find a method to perfectly center that first drill hole for the drilling method to work. You might try the stud extractor 1st. If they broke using a socket on the nut, my experience way they aren't going to budge with a welded on nut either.

https://www.ford-trucks.com/forums/1...r-dummies.html

 

Thanks for the replies. I was able to "double nut method" and remove 5 of the 6 exposed studs. The last exposed stud is giving me trouble. Threads are stripped and wont hold a double nut. I heated it up and cautiously applied a vise-grip but it wouldn't budge. I'm gonna keep soaking it with oil and get the extracter. Once I'm finished with that one I'll move onto the fun part of drilling. It seems as if the studs near the front of the head came out easier than the ones towards the rear. The studs that need drilling are the first 3 closest to the front. I'm hoping for good results.

 

Please keep us informed how it goes. I am certain I have broken manifold studs as well... gonna have to bite the bullet eventually and tackle this project.

Question: Can you replace the studs with bolts?

Thanks!

 

Its a requirement as far as I'm concerned. If you go to the trouble to get all those studs removed, don't you dare put more studs back in there. Several aftermarket bolt options, and I believe Ford even has a bolt the released on a TSB. I installed headers so mine came with the Banks kits.

 

Good luck ! I would reccomend a left hand drill bit . I do a lot of these on 4.6 and 5.4 engines . I have good luck using left hand bits .They usually grip and turn out the stud before they are drilled all the way through . I do not live in the salt belt though .

 

Awesome write-up sammie! I won't be able to use a pilot stud to drill. All 3 studs are broke barely one thread deep. Worst part about all this is I still have to do the other side. Only 2 visibly broke so far on driver's side. Also to add to the misery, as soon as I'm done with my truck, my brother wants to pull his 99 into my garage to address broken stud issue. Two engines worth of studs back to back should make me a seasoned veteran.

 

Ya that's worst case for centering a drill, would try welding first in that case. If that won't work I would recommend a Dremel with a right angle attachment and a Diamond Head Burr bit - set it to 25k rpm and you can tap it on the center of the stud and it cuts is very quickly and doesn't walk around like a lower rpm drill bit. Had several suggest an air hammered center punch to make the pilot but I didn't have one and there is no clearance to do a punch with a hammer.

Also keep in mind the 1st few threads really are not essential. The ford studs have a flat section in the middle and it ride over those 1st few threads. I buggered up a couple of holes before I figured out the centering issues and had no trouble threading in the new bolts with no leaks after. For the 4 I drilled out completely I did try a reverse bit for at least two of the sizes, but never got one out with a reverse bit.

If there is one thing I learned... if you get to drilling them out don't use any bits that are not Colbalt, Tungsten or Diamond, broke off a titanium in one of mine that isn't covered in my write up, was way to pissed off to take pictures. If you decide to try an Easy out don't use the spirals, get the square ones. Spirals are the ones I broke off and it was days of drilling to get it out, used the square ones after I drilled out 3 of them down to basically nothing but threads to pull the remaining threads out. They catch much better. A pair of long needle nosed hemostats (a vet friend of mine loaned them to me) also worked great for picking out the remaining threads after the stud was drilled out.

 

Also I would cut the nuts off the other side, take your chances with a stud extractor. Then you are guaranteed to have at least an 1" or so to work with after the manifold is off.

 

Finally got the last stud out. Of course, its always the last one that gives a guy troubles. Had to drill it out to the threads. This was done after an extractor was busted off in a 5/32 hole. I had to drill 3 studs total. Besides the last one, the other 2 were a cinch. Hardest part was making sure the hole was drilled straight. Both were drilled fairly straight. Funny thing was, I asked my little 2 1/2 year old girl for good luck kiss before the first 2 and they came out with little effort. Unfortunately she wasn't home when I attempted the 3rd and final stud. Anyways, all the holes are fairly clean but I was thinking of running a tap through just to make sure. What size tap do I need? I'm guessing a 8mmx1.25? Also the hole that gave me all the trouble seems really sloppy. The good stud that I had left wobbled substantially more in that hole than it did in all the other holes.

 

I wouldn't tap it and try to just thread in a new bolt, it's already too big if you are having issues. Get a helicoiil kit it comes wiht the correct sizes for reseting the hole and the insert, less than $20. The kit you need is the 8x1.25 heli kit.

 

Well, little by little I'm getting this done. Kind of tough tho when all I have is limited windows of time. But everything is going smooth. The last decision to make is what to use to replace the studs. I've read a lot about using higher grade bolts instead of stainless studs. But I have varying opinions either way. I would think a hardened bolt would be harder to break, yet maybe wouldn't stretch during expansion and contracting. And another stud could break easier, but would be easier to extract if it happens to fail. Maybe I didn't read enough, but is there a general consensus or agreement on what is the better hardware to use?

 

Bolts! I would recommend grade 10.9, don't put studs back in, and put anti seize on the bolts. They will come out if you ever need to remove them, and if by some freak chance one breaks you are in the same boat as with a stud you are going to have to weld something on or drill it out. Don't see how studs would be easier to remove if you ever have another failure.

 

I've found a couple different bolts. Grade 8.8 Zinc coated Hex head, grade 10.9 flange bolt, or the local NAPA has Allen head hardened machine bolts , which I've used many times when installing headers. I've also heard some guys will use a copper coated stainless stud with brass nuts.