of the 2 bolts on the stat housing, the rear one (the major PITA) is it just a nut that comes off, or does a whole bolt with a nut on it come off.. mine looks like its a nut that is in the middle of a bolt... but the whole thing backed out a little, then started getting tough... I do NOT want this thing to snap ....
thanks for the help
-Ben

 

it is one long bolt. I had to take off the throttle body just to take out that one bolt.

 

On mine, the rear was a bolt, and the front was a nut on a stud. I had to remove the throttle body to get at them, and I had to front stud snap off even after heeating it with a torch, that sucked, but i fixed it with a drill and tap..

 

After seeing this a couple of times it appears GM uses steel bolts/studs in aluminum manifolds with no anti-seize. After all, they never have to remove them once they leave the factory, right. I always put studs in the manifold (I do the same thing for the distributor hold down bolt - replace it with a stud). You can buy the right size at Lowe's (and they are grade 5 so they are plenty strong enough) for less than $5 and never have that problem again.

------------------
Z's r Best