Well, here's one of my dumbass moments... did a search and turned up nothing.

I was trying to do my valve guide seals today when I ran into a stubborn bolt while in the process of removing the valve cover (on the intake, holding down FI/Alt harness) that penetrant wouldn't help. So I decide to call on the grace of a BFH. Tap, tap, nothing. Swing, ricochet, right into a runner tube. Actually did it twice (first time didn't notice it).

Its not a big dent, but its noticably ugly. Will this hurt performance in any way? Its such a small dent I'm guessing no (I took a digital photo but all I could see in it were the marks form the hammer).

I probably know this answer already, but is there any way to fix this?

 

i managed to push out a dent in a runner using the boxed end of a wrench, but i don't remember the size, since it was nice and rounded(craftsmen), i just kinda pushed it into the runner, to the dent and tapped lightly with a hammer, now, you can see where the dent was, but its not dented anymore. i think i might have even had a blanket or something under it to kind-of prevent it from hitting a hard surface when i tapped it out. i picked the wrench cause it just fit into the runner, and stopped once it hit the dent.

 

depending on the size of the dent more than likly it wont do anything

 

Thanks for the responses. I'll try the wrench things when I take them off.

 

Any musical instrument repair place should be able to do it.

 

Jim Performance will push a bearing the size of the runner through the tube and it will pop out any dents

 

ebay often sells the steel ***** for this job. I just saw a set go unbid for $20

 

when i had my engine rebuilt, my mechanic left a nice freakin' dent in one of my runners. i dont know if it affected the performance, but i really don't care because i had the HSR waiting to be put on. i wouldnt spend a dime fixing anything with the stock intake... i'd just get better runners, or replace the tpi with something better. just my .02

 

That's neat, never heard of that. What keywords do I search for?

 

I ran across them just using "TPI runner" Maybe narrow it with TPI runner repair. They are not always there however.

 

The large ball bearing trick works great!

 

Been watching eBay with no luck. What size do I need and where could I go to just get a plain ball bearing to do this?

 

buy a new set of aftermarket runners if you want to stay with the tpi.