Well, when we were putting the gaskets on the heads to lay the manifold on, I noticed some metal sticking up from the thread that one of the intake manifold bolts goes in. I grabbed some pliers and got the metal out, when it was out, it just appeared to be some dried up sealant that had stayed in the hole when we pulled the bolt out. Well, we layed the manifold back on the engine and tried to screw that bolt in, and sure enough it wouldn't grab anything. HELP ME PLEASE! What can I do? Can I tap the head a size bigger? How do I do this? Are there any other alternatives? Do I need new heads?

HELP
Tony

 

depending on how many threads are damaged, you can just try and re-tap the hole. If the lead threads are just bad, I'd try this,there should be pelnty for the bolt to hold on to depending on the depth of the hole. Otherwise we use Heli-coils at my work to fix alot of stripped threads. they might work

 

Sounds to me like he just pulled one out.

 

Heli-Coils almost always work. They;re an extra-cost upgrade to many aluminum heads, a standard feature of some of the more expensive ones, to prevent exactly this from happening.

Don't tap it out to a bigger size. Do it right.

I doubt it had one in it already; sounds like that bolt was just glued in with some sealant. It's pretty hard to mistake pulling an entire Heli-Coil out for a bit of sealant.

 

yeah go to your local parts store or hardware store and get some helicoils, they're easy to use and work great

 

eh, turns out the bolt was just being difficult and needed a lot of persuasion to get in the hole, but we got it in, and everything's good.

Thanks
Tony