Snapped Exhaust Studs
Posted: Sun Mar 06, 2022 5:31 pm
So today literally could not have gone worse.
Yesterday I took a 5 hour round trip to pick up a very nice Powerflow cat back exhaust system from another forum member for my bb8, and today I had planned to fit it today. Oh how naive of me...
I didn't realise that the cat had a heat shield that covered the bolts joining it to the mid section, and obviously the bolts holding the heat shield on rounded off immediately. I ended up cutting and tearing the shield off as it was rusting anyway. The bolts holding the cat to the mid section were also completely seized, and after fighting them for an hour I decided to cut them too. Got the lowest one off with no drama, but couldn't get to the top one. Here is where things go from bad to worse.
My clever brain decides it would be a great idea to just remove the whole system from the downpipe, then I can spend time replacing all the rusted bolts while it's off the car. Genius! So the first think I do is get a breaker bar on the nuts holding the down pipe to the manifold, and immediately snap my socket extension... So I get a bigger one and try again. This time all 3 nuts all break off nicely one by one, so I thought I was finally getting somewhere. As I'm loosening one of the nuts, it begins getting tighter again, until suddenly the nut and stud just sheer off!
Now I'm stuck and don't know what to do. I realise that the Manifold will have to come off so I can drill out the broken stud, so I go to remove the manifold heat shield and obviously the lower bolt sheers off immediately, so now that's 2 I have to drill out. I get the cover off and take one look at the manifold nuts before deciding to pack it in and pay a garage to sort this mess for me. They will definitely break if I try to loosen them and I really don't want to be extracting broken studs from the block too. So now I'm stuck with a car I can't use and feeling utterly defeated by what should have been such a simple task.
I also have another dilemma. A while back my flexi started blowing, and I had a universal replacement badly welded in by a friend which I have a feeling is already on the way out. Since my entire exhaust has to come off, is it worth buying one of the reproduction replacements that I'm seeing on ebay? ---> https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/175028861328
Seems expensive considering it's not even stainless. Anyone know where I can get a stainless version? Or even an complete stainless manifold?
Sorry for the rant, it's just been one of those days...
Cheers
Yesterday I took a 5 hour round trip to pick up a very nice Powerflow cat back exhaust system from another forum member for my bb8, and today I had planned to fit it today. Oh how naive of me...
I didn't realise that the cat had a heat shield that covered the bolts joining it to the mid section, and obviously the bolts holding the heat shield on rounded off immediately. I ended up cutting and tearing the shield off as it was rusting anyway. The bolts holding the cat to the mid section were also completely seized, and after fighting them for an hour I decided to cut them too. Got the lowest one off with no drama, but couldn't get to the top one. Here is where things go from bad to worse.
My clever brain decides it would be a great idea to just remove the whole system from the downpipe, then I can spend time replacing all the rusted bolts while it's off the car. Genius! So the first think I do is get a breaker bar on the nuts holding the down pipe to the manifold, and immediately snap my socket extension... So I get a bigger one and try again. This time all 3 nuts all break off nicely one by one, so I thought I was finally getting somewhere. As I'm loosening one of the nuts, it begins getting tighter again, until suddenly the nut and stud just sheer off!
Now I'm stuck and don't know what to do. I realise that the Manifold will have to come off so I can drill out the broken stud, so I go to remove the manifold heat shield and obviously the lower bolt sheers off immediately, so now that's 2 I have to drill out. I get the cover off and take one look at the manifold nuts before deciding to pack it in and pay a garage to sort this mess for me. They will definitely break if I try to loosen them and I really don't want to be extracting broken studs from the block too. So now I'm stuck with a car I can't use and feeling utterly defeated by what should have been such a simple task.
I also have another dilemma. A while back my flexi started blowing, and I had a universal replacement badly welded in by a friend which I have a feeling is already on the way out. Since my entire exhaust has to come off, is it worth buying one of the reproduction replacements that I'm seeing on ebay? ---> https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/175028861328
Seems expensive considering it's not even stainless. Anyone know where I can get a stainless version? Or even an complete stainless manifold?
Sorry for the rant, it's just been one of those days...
Cheers