Exhaust Manifold Removal
11-04-2018, 06:01 PM
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Car: 1987 Trans Am
Exhaust Manifold Removal
Is everybody accessing all the driver side studs from up top? Fighting with the one that the brake lines interfere with right now.
11-07-2018, 04:52 PM
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Engine: Usually
Transmission: Sometimes
Axle/Gears: Behind me somewhere
Re: Exhaust Manifold Removal
Yup; or maybe 14mm, which is just a hair smaller. Use one with an offset, just a small bend at the end, and turn it backwards so it angles back toward the engine. Gotta bend those tab things outta the way first obviously. Main problem always seems to be rust... either the bolts rusted to the castings, or the heads eroded and smaller than nominal. The threads are usually, but of course not always, OK.
11-07-2018, 05:17 PM
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Re: Exhaust Manifold Removal
Yup; or maybe 14mm, which is just a hair smaller. Use one with an offset, just a small bend at the end, and turn it backwards so it angles back toward the engine. Gotta bend those tab things outta the way first obviously. Main problem always seems to be rust... either the bolts rusted to the castings, or the heads eroded and smaller than nominal. The threads are usually, but of course not always, OK.
Ya, bending those back tabs is going to be a pain in the but. Getting my hands past the brake lines is a pain.
03-11-2020, 05:06 AM
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Re: Exhaust Manifold Removal
How are you all getting the rear most bolt out on the passenger side of an A/C car? Do you have to remove the A/C box? And is it 9/16" or 14mm? Thanks.
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03-11-2020, 06:47 AM
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Re: Exhaust Manifold Removal
It is also 9/16", 14mm fits very tight. I tackled this myself last year on my 92 and ended up cutting a 9/16" box wrench with a flex. Overall length was about 3" or so. Otherwise I had no chance to run this bolt out... It was horrible but with a ton of patience and about one hour I managed to get it out.
03-12-2020, 09:03 AM
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Re: Exhaust Manifold Removal
9/16" = .5625" = 14.2875mm
14mm = .5512"
About .011" difference, which is about 2 - 3 sheets of laser printer paper
The bolts are ACTUALLY 9/16", or at least, were when new. 3/8" - 16 is the bolt size, for which 9/16" is the standard hex head. After they've rusted a bit, they tend to be smaller, and the corners tend to be rounded instead of a nice clean hex. A 14mm 6-point often works MUCH better on them than a 9/16", especially a 12-point, which has a strong weakness about slipping and rounding the corners even worse. Subject of course to the problem wherein a 6-point has to turn the bolt 60° before you can take the wrench off and put it back on to make the next 60° turn. I use a long one to break em loose and a REAL SHORT one to take em out. You can buy little shorties that are just fine, and for that matter, once you get em broken loose with a 6-point, a 12-point will usually work fine on em the rest of the way.
The amount of offset at the end of JCDenton's wrench is just about perfect. It just needs to be one of those 15° bends or the like.
14mm = .5512"
About .011" difference, which is about 2 - 3 sheets of laser printer paper
The bolts are ACTUALLY 9/16", or at least, were when new. 3/8" - 16 is the bolt size, for which 9/16" is the standard hex head. After they've rusted a bit, they tend to be smaller, and the corners tend to be rounded instead of a nice clean hex. A 14mm 6-point often works MUCH better on them than a 9/16", especially a 12-point, which has a strong weakness about slipping and rounding the corners even worse. Subject of course to the problem wherein a 6-point has to turn the bolt 60° before you can take the wrench off and put it back on to make the next 60° turn. I use a long one to break em loose and a REAL SHORT one to take em out. You can buy little shorties that are just fine, and for that matter, once you get em broken loose with a 6-point, a 12-point will usually work fine on em the rest of the way.
The amount of offset at the end of JCDenton's wrench is just about perfect. It just needs to be one of those 15° bends or the like.
Last edited by sofakingdom; 03-12-2020 at 09:10 AM.
03-12-2020, 09:12 AM
#14
Re: Exhaust Manifold Removal
My 88 only has 20k miles but some idiot did a horrible job on resealing the intake and I had water in oil and oil in water. All because oil was seeping through the inner screws of the intake. The full retard hobby wrencher didn't use any sealing on the intake or on the china walls, you can imagine the mess in and on the engine. So I had to disassemble everything and a 14mm didn't fit on the the bolt. Because of the low miles, they hadn't built up much rust. On my 91 parts car the engine had about 180.000 kilometers, and the 14mm also didn't fit. I always had to use the 9/16" for these engines and never broke or stripped a bolt on the exhaust. I've done plenty of them for friends and such, never had a problem. Maybe it also depends on how the car was driven before (winter, salt, heat... you name it)?
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