Aflac called me earlier this afternoon with what sounded like a pretty simple problem (oh yeah). He was trying to remove the right exhaust manifold. Five bolts out without a problem. The third from the front the head had rounded off. So he goes to Sears and buys a bolt removal set. With his latest round of bad luck, the head breaks off the bolt.

OK, it might be a little tight pulling the ram head off, but just pull stright out and all should be good, right? Not for Aflac. You can move the back of the manifold up and down with no problem. But it will not move over that bolt. And then he makes his biggest mistake...He calls me. I went over to his place and checked over everything he had done. You could stick the end of your finger in 6 holes. In #3 you could feel the bolt but that is what I expected.

We did just about everything we could with screwdrivers, pry bars, and even a cold chisel. We finally broke off the front of the manifold and all we did was move it about 1/4 inch from the head. He tried a pair of alligator vice-grips and the bolt will NOT turn in the manifold. It is turning in the block, you can see the bolt move when you move the manifold.

I have never seen anything like this before. And I have definately removed more than my share of exhaust manifolds. I will admit that the newest Vette I have ever pulled an engine/heads from is a 72, but I don't believe that there is that much diff. in a 72/77 exhaust manifold.

After seeing what Aflac has been going thru, when you head for bed tonight...hit your knees and ask the man upstairs to take pitty on Mike. This just ain't right. A broken head and now a broken exhaust manifold.

 

not sure i like the idea of this. but you said the head was already broken and you have 1/4 clearance....can you use a reciprocating saw and cut the bolt?

 

He is just going to go buy a hack-saw and get after it tomorrow. I think about 1/2 lb. of C4 would be quicker, but he doesn't really like that idea for some reason.

 

If it was raining prostitutes, i would get hit with a pimp...

 

Fortunately, the replacement manifolds from Oreilly's are just a bit over a hundred bucks...and they can get one in a day or so. (Hope you have Oreillys in your area.)

The downside is that it says "Made in China"...but you can't see it when it's installed. The upside is that it's better than the original (no kidding)!

How do I know? I have one -- ceramic coated and everything -- installed on my car because my original broke at one of the many weak points!

 

Got a pair of 78's at the machine shop now being decked and checked for square... I just didnt wanna destroy the originals but the way this is going, nothing is sacred anymore...

 

 

You can keep the original look, and pick up performance with the CNC machine ported units this place has:

http://www.castheads.com/index.html

 

 

I had a similar experience about 8 years ago. Broken fan belt came off and slapped the hood causing the pretty laquer paint to pop off. The broken belt gets tangled up in the other belts causing the AIR pump bracket and the AC compressor bracket to break. The exhaust manifold stud where the AC bracket attaches at the passenger side front snapped off at the head. All this carnage over a silly little smog pump belt!

Laid up my car for 8 years because I was too busy to do a complete engine tear-down so I could get to the broken off stud from inside the cylinder head. No way to fix it while the engine was still in the car so the head had to come off. If I was going in that far there was no way I was going to fix the head without doing an engine overhaul. At least I did not talk myself into a frame-off

Fast forward to now and we have pulled the engine, overhauled it good as new, replaced the smoggy heads with Darts, repaint the hood and now we are back on the road.

I feel your pain Aflac.

-Mark.

 

On the bright side, I went out there this morning and used the hack saw to cut the bolt off.. talk about a contrary bolt, it smoothed the teeth of a 1" section of the blade.. after some more working, the manifold piece finally came off! The heads actually came off without a whole lot of fight...no prybars needed..lol.. now the next question is, what should I use to clean the decks???

 

A gasket scraper. Put some rags in the cylinders to catch the crud...and start scraping! Take your time.

When you're done, use a shop vac to suck any leftover crud out of the cylinders.

 

thats what i was thinking.. the crud isnt too bad...just some greasy looking stuff..

 

I'm sure the machine shop can get the screw holes on the head fixed up if they are now trashed... While at it, you can have them check the heads for flatness and square them up for you - maybe even get a little CR bump out of the deal... Glad to hear you got the damn manifolds off!

 

there's no deadline really... just the 1st show may 1st then CI... no pressure really...

 

I used lacquer thinner for a final wipe clean.

 

Man, you're really having some bad luck. I feel for you. At least you are making some progress now. Best of luck with putting it back together.