Passenger side 360 exhaust manifold 2 front bolts broken off. I recently noticed that the manifold gasket is going bad and while looking at it, I noticed that the two front bolt heads are snapped off. Any suggestions about getting these out? Looks like just the heads of the bolts are busted and not down to the actual head itself. I really don't want to remove the head and have them tapped out if I can avoid it.

 

Weld a nut to what is left of the stud. Apply a little heat if you have to. It should come right out.

 

drill the bolt for an easy-out, heat till dull red, apply candle wax. Should come right out. i've done this many times, and it's always worked for me. If you don't have an easy-out, you can use vise-grips.

 

Custom Cabby,

Did you get those busted bolts out? I also have the same issue and I really don't wanna remove the head.

Thanks

 

I sure.... DIDNT!!!! I ended up snapping 3 of them. Long story short, I had to unbolt the motor mount and lift one side of the motor up to gain enough angle clearance to drill out and tap the holes again. It wasn't all that bad being I used a brand new drill and tap bit with about a 1/2 can of PB Blaster to lube up both bits to get the job done.

To let you know, I even used a torch to heat the bolts up, soaked with PB and went extra slow and still ended up snapping them off.

 

Sounds like you had a lot of fun doing that. I did hear from someone that mentioned that they never had a problem breaking exhaust manifold bolts on old engines when they used an impact wrench with heat. The person stated that they felt that the reason was all the vibration caused the bolt to let go. I wish I knew before I started taking of mine.

Thanks for the info

 

I have an exhaust leak on the driverside head (71 F250 w/390), tried loosening the first upper manifold bolt, snap! Soaked the other 3 upper bolts in penetrating fluid, run the engine till the heads were nice n hot, snapped off no. 2 after I thought it was actuclly coming loose. Oh well, looks like i am pulling the head off to try to salvage it, and get the rest of the bolts out somehow. If not, guess I am gonna buy another rebuilt head and put it all back together.

 

I second the impact!! A wrench aplies a side load that snaps the bolt. I know for a fact that you can't aply 400ft/lbs to a bolt with a wrench but can with my impact. I broke one bolt right off when I tried a wrench and had no problems when I pulled the impact out. Just had to undo the motor mounts and tip it to the side while I worked on it.

 

I still need to pull the head to get the broken bolts out, seems it will be much easier than trying to drill them out with no clearance in the engine bay. Shoot I might even pull both heads, clean them up, ditch the stock manifolds and and throw some headers on it while it's all a part...

 

Good plan!! Headers realy wake these old motors up. Where are you?? I have a set of new hooker competitions I'm going to get rid of. Never been on I changed my build plans for my truck.

 

i have the same problem, on the drivers side, thinking about ordering some headers on summit racing.