manifold problem!

[aaron1981]

so apparently i have a leak in my manifold and discovered today that one of the bolts on the right manifold was busted off and ground flush to the manifold by the previous owner of my ranger. its a 94 with a 3.0L . does anyone have any idea's on what i can do to get the bolt out or am i better off just welding the manifold on to fix the leak?

 

[CraigK]

I haven't had to do this to a manifold bolt yet, but typically you drill out the old bolt and tap a new thread to a larger size and either use a larger bolt or install Heli-coils to restore the threads to the original size. (Heli-coil inserts are available at your local hardware store.) How easy/difficult this is usually depends on your experience and how much working access you have to the broken part.

I like to begin the drilling part by using a high-speed Dremel tool with a diamond grit tip to start an alignment hole that is centered properly in the old bold material. Then I use a FRESH, HIGH-QUALITY (cobalt) drill bit to do the drilling. I have a cable extension for my drill that helps drill in limited locations when needed. Once drilled, tapping a new thread is usually pretty straight forward, although again, the ease of doing this is access and experience dependent.

The cost of doing this depends on how many of these tools you already own. If this all sounds like Greek to you, you might want to have an experienced buddy help you out.

CraigK

 

[Tedybear]

Center punch...dead center of what's left of the old bolt. Use another punch with a dead blow hammer and further inset a punch mark to prevent the drill "bit" from walking around.

Use a high quality REVERSE drill bit. At times the combination of smacking the remains, and the reverse bit can be enough to spin the left overs out of the head (Had to do this 3 times on our probe GT with broken off exhaust studs)

If that fails? Then I'd drill out the remains and retap the hole. This kinda stuff happens all the time in shops. Just have to use care when drilling out the hole for a tap-job. Re-threading the hole is a very viable option here.

When installing everything, see if you can get high temp anti-seize to coat the bolts.

S-