Heya. Iv'e been trying to rid the car of the air stuff for a troublesome while now and I'm stuck again. Right now I'm dealing with the tubes that run from the check valves into the exhaust manifolds. I've gotten 3 of the 4 fittings loose from the passenger side manifold (through about a month of pain and agony lol). I'm able to wiggle them and turn them freely with my hand. But for some reason, all 3 of them will not come out. They turn very easily to a point and then just stop and no amount of pulling or wiggling will get them out. The pipes coming out of the fittings act like they are still being held in by something. They wont budge. Now is there something I need to know about getting these fittings out or have I somehow managed to equally break all 3 in half or something? This is on my 89 L98 TPI by the way.

 

I just removed the air tubes from my 305 TBI a few days ago...i removed the diverter valve and unscrewed the nuts where the tunes go into the exhaust manafold...once its unscrewed, just put some pressure on each tube and bend it out...if you're going to put headers on you could just remove the manafolds....you can keep bending the air tubes back and fourth until they snap...
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#1 - This tube will remain in place after you remove the air tubes and the manafolds...you will need to take this out at the end...

#2 - Just loosen and pull up on this tube...

#3 - Loosen and pull out, alone with the others that are not shown in the pic...just bend the heck out of them if you need to

 

Hey thanks for the reply man. Now hold on. It sounds as though you are saying that once the bolts are loose, they are supposed to stay in place while the tubes coming out of them are supposed to be removed. Is that the case? I guess I should have added that I couldn't turn the bolts with an open ended wrench because all they were doing was stripping it. I had to do what some people on here reccomended and saw the tubes off enough to where I could get a socket onto them. So are these bolts not supposed to just turn out like a normal bolt?

Also, I don't recognize number 1 in your pic. The only thing it seems like it could be to me, is the pipe going to the catalytic converter. If so, I just capped that.

 

The #1 in my picture is part of the air tube system that is tucked behind the motor...you should see it if you look back there...and if the nuts wont turn with a regular wrench, then i guess you could cut then and use a socket...Once they are loose, they still stay in place, you just simple bend them outward...they should detatch from the manafold...
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THen just pull of this short piece of hose and the air tubes will come righ out...of course if you don't do anything else the manafolds, we will have a bad exhaust leak

 

Do you plan on keeping the stock exhaust manifolds? If you do, at some point in time, I believe after '86-'87, GM used a flared fitting so people would stop removing these AIR tubes and just plugging them with standard pipe thread bolts. My '88-'89 motor had these flared fittings and I had to cut the ends off the AIR tubes and weld the ends and use them as my plugs. Just something to chew on before you destroy any of them trying to get them off.

Mine were mauled pretty bad trying to get them off as they stuck in a couple spots...passenger side I believe. High heat and corrosion=bad. Anyway, try spraying some PB Blaster in there and letting it soak in before trying and hopefully it will break some of the corrosion loose for you. Otherwise, vise grips or sockets are going to be your best bet.

A side note, my manifolds were off the car and in a vise when I tried to pull the AIR tubes off and it still sucked, so you may want to think about removing the manifold if you can. Might save you time believe it or not in the long run.

 

Use a 9/16 (I think if I remember size correctly) fitted pipe wrench
14 MM is just a tad to small

 

Haha alright man thanks alot. Thats exactly what I needed to know.........Ya know......through all the tons and tons of posts about removing these air tubes, no one ever mentioned that....

I am going to eventually get some long tube headers (probably hedman..) but not until I'm good and ready for what that will throw at me. I don't feel like going through a header install right now just because of some stupid bolts. But, yea Ive heard about the flared fittings. Supposedly you can use standard pipe plugs but they come loose after a while. I was talking about these fittings with somebody at a local auto store and he showed me a case full of flared fittings that I would need. So if I need to I can just swing back by there and pick some up. And YES, these were about the worst condition bolts Ive seen on the car (and thats saying alot) but about 5 coatings of PB Blaster and a good set of bolt grips did the trick fairly easily. I just hope none of them are actually broken.

I was actually originally trying to use a 9/16 open ended wrench. The fittings were stuck so bad though, that it was just stripping them. I don't know about fitted pipe wrenches though. We may not have any.

Lol sorry if my answers were long. Im kinda tired so I may have gotten carried away with my answers. Still everyone for your input. Very much appreciated.

 

did you mean line wrench?...

 

Do you realize you are replying to a post that is SIX YEARS OLD?

 

yep... its worth a shot for clarity... couldnt find any good answers for what to use to take off my A.I.R. tubes without trashing them