Yep , chunk them too, unless you are doing a concourse restoration,,,, they are effective but also very effective knuckle skinners....use lock washers.....
I ordered a replacement kit from TA for new bolts. Anyone ever use this kit? The bolt heads are 12 point instead of 6. I also ordered a whole engine gasket kit from them as well, but I'm leaning on not putting the gasket back on the exhaust, just hitting it with the sealant.
Somebody on here said ( take the fenders off it'l be much easier ) I was like you what? Until i attempted it..... wow those fenders couldnt come off quick enough!! It was also not the place for my oldest daughter.. I got quite sweary!!lol!! As for new gaskets i was told to make your own copper ones as they would never perrish, even if a bolt slacked off and exhaust gasses escaped. This would be the end for a regular gasket but, not a copper one?? Anyone here done the same or heard of it being done?
After going through several sets of exhaust gaskets on my pickup (or lorry ) I switched over to copper gaskets and special header bolts. The bolts needed retightening just once. Though there was a small leak, it did not burn out the gasket. Sealed right up when I went through the bolts again, tightening them. If the manifolds and the heads are both flat on their mating surfaces, you likely won't even need any gaskets or the sealer. I didn't use any on my 350 Buick lots of years ago. Never had a leak or a problem.
How would i determine the surface of the heads are flat enough to do away with gaskets?? apart from sending them to a machine shop.
Get a real good straight edge and a feeler gage and lay the straight edge on the manifold/head surface and where the most light comes under the straight edge, measure the clearance.... any more than .005 needs to be machined.... now if you are around a good auto supply , a lot of them can pass the manifold over a grinding stone and make them flat again...other wise it is off to a full machine shop for machining... and if you have a very large flat file and skill , you can draw file it your self, but you need to be really sure of your self,,,,
If you have the manifolds machined, how much do they take off? I'm worried about them taking it down too far and the bolts not fitting.
A good machinist will only take off enough to create a straight, flat surface. If yours need to be machined enough to make the bolt length an issue, they were trash to begin with.
Just find a machine shop that has a surfacer. That is a big table top belt sander. Just lay in on the belt and the sparks will fly. A surfacer will level a pair of Buick manifolds before you can smoke a cigarette. Never use gaskets on any Buick V8 :264,322,364,401,425,215,300,340,350,400,430,455
I've got the three bottom bolts off, and all the top bolts are loose except one. The frontmost top bolt is a bit stuck. I sprayed it down again tonight, and with all the other bolts loose or gone the gap between the manifold and head is wider so I got some spray in there too, then let the engine heat the bolts up again. I should get it to come off tomorrow. Here's my question. When I bolt the thing back on, how on earth am I supposed to get a torque wrench into those tiny spots to torque the bolts to spec? There are some very tiny spaces to get to, there's no way I'm getting a torque wrench in there. Can I just tighten it up to feel? I broke one of the bolts off of the clamp that holds the exhaust pipe crossover to the manifold. That shouldn't be too hard to get out though.
If you haven't the experience and developed a 'feel' for torque, I'd probably mock up/practice using another similar bolt and compare the torque wrench to your feel-then do your unreachable bolts. I might also replace those old bolts and, since I'm a cheap midwestern SOB, have been resurfacing exhaust manifolds by using my concrete driveway for many years-works fine and the price is right. Depending on the aggregate composition and surface-'your results may vary'!
Well, pard, just use a short 3/8 drive rachet and tighten the bolts up all the way and unless you are a 500 lb. gorilla you aint gonna break any bolts off..... forget using a torque wrench on exhaust manifold bolts....have you ever seen a pro mechanic use a torque wrench on exhaust manifolds???? Be sure to use anti-seize on all the threads... You will develop a ''feel'' for tightening the bolts and will know exactly when to stop.....look into using a ''gear wrench'' to work the bolts.....
These were my thoughts as well, but I just wanted to make sure. I bought new bolts to put back in there. Thanks
Got it off today. Easier than I thought. Now I just have to drill that broken bolt off the exhaust clam and get it resurfaced. 2 questions: the steering shaft runs right along the area where the manifold sits. Having that out of the way would make things easier. Can I take that off to move it out of the way, with relative ease? If not, getting the manifold back in there will take a little manuevering. I can imagine getting it back in there without banging it on stuff. Which means if I put some permatek on it, it's going to get scraped off. In which case, I think I'm going to go without a seal and without the permatek and just mate surface to surface. Looking at the passenger side, it looks like it doesn't have a seal on it. And it looks fine. I'm going to have the machine shop blast the manifold and heat shield, and I'm going to paint it with some of the eastwood's high temp manifold paint before putting it back on. I also blasted the bolt holes with spray to help clean 'em out before putting the bolts back on. Oh, also, the ports on the front and back of the manifold were white, meaning they were pretty hot. The two in the middle are kinda black, carbonized looking. Obviously the front and back are running hot and the two in the middle aren't. Any thoughts?
dont put anything on the mating surfaces.... tighten the center bolts first, just snug,,, then go back and tighten them again completely.... the reason that some ports were white and some black is that the black ones were running richer on that cyl....
Other than the center bolts first, is there any special order to the bolts? I did the bottoms first and then the tops taking it off.
