I have never once touched the exuast manifolds or bolts, i was wondering why my gas milage was so god damn poor and why my exaust was terribly loud, popped the hood and was looking at both Manifolds, i noticed the right manifold by the battery has all the bolts, and the left manifold has a hole were a bolt is supposed to go but there is no bolt,there is also a white powerdy substains (probably smoke from leakage) where the missing bolt is, i stuck a flathead into the shaft and the bolt is deffinitly stuck inside the head....at the upper most bolt near ignition coil...

so if i removed the left side manifold what are my options here?

will a drill fit into that tight space? can i use any tools or am i doomed to remove the head

plz help this gas strive is killing me about 7 MPG, and the gallon is 3.49...

thanks !

P.S. the previous owner had Midas do the complete exaust system, i recommend NEVERRRRRRRRRRR going there, they also did the oil change stripped the oil pan bolt which is another hell project i have to go through, and also did a bad brake job.

 

I thought I got crappy mileage lol. Unless the bolt is sticking out of the head a little then you I would pull the head to remove the bolt to do it easily. I wouldn't try a drill and tap with the head in the car.

 

theres like 5-6 inches think a drill will fit?

 

Not a regular power drill. You would want to get some sort of angle drill to fit in there. Believe me I tried to drill 2 bolts out of my head last summer with it still inthe car.

 

Just take off the exhaust manifold, soak the bolt down with PB Blaster, and try to twist it off with a ViseGrip. The bolt might not even be stuck, the bolt head might have just popped off...happened to 4 of my bolts and not 1 was stuck when I took off the exhaust manifold. Plus, its a lot less work than taking the head off...8 bolts VS. half the engine.

 

 

i dont think i can visgrip it because it's flush with the head the bolt that broke any other suggestions?

 

You got to drill and tap it out then. I don't think that there is anything else you can do.

 

Well eather way you go youll have to take off the exhaust manifold. So I would make sure it is flush...if there is some bolt sticking out vise grip it. If you find it is flush, than you need to drill and tap it out. Youll probubly need one of those 90* drills if you leave the head bolted on the block.
Those are pretty much your ways of doing this...Vise Grips or drill and tap.

And on a side note, I highly doubt that an exhaust leak is killing your MPG that bad. I had 3 broken manifold bolts abd a hole in my exhaust pipe and I was still around 17-18.

 

uh, we'll then im lost on what it could be changed just about everything lol..

i see white powder around the exaust dounuts and the last exaust bolt hole because the bolt snapped, so that wouldnt impact my MPG at all?

 

Im not saying that it wont hurt your MPG...but I doubt that an exhaust leak has dropped it 10+/- MPG. I would fix it and see what happens, it still should be fixed...I just wouldnt expect anything drastic.

 

You could try a left hand drill bit. See if you know of anyone who has them, or try buying a set. They're mainly produced for extracting broken bolts. I dont use pb blaster since its like twice as much as wd40 but i've heard good things. If you use any kind of penetrating lubricant and a left hand bit it may twist out the bolt, meaning you wont have to drill the whole thing out.

 

ill grab a left handed drill bit at sears if they have any, i'll also grab my dremel tool and a drill to see if i can somehow get this thing out without removal of the head, thanks alot to all who replied.

 

One snapped exhaust manifold bolt isn't going to effect your gas mileage. Generally exhaust leaks result in black sooty deposits, white would mean either the engine is running very lean (unlikely with your gas mileage) or antifreeze leak. Think head gasket, cracked head, cracked block, etc. What's the plug in that cylinder look like?

Honestly I drove my 3.1 Firebird with a broken manifold bolt for 5 or 6 years. My S10 had at least one broken too, never caused a problem.

 

the plugs look normal, no deposits, anitfreeze, etc, there new btw, the exaust donuts and that broken bolt has like a chared greyish look not flush white sry bout that, but i got some horrible MPG i dont understand why i get like 10 MPG with new plugs,dist cap,rotor,gas cap,tps,iac,oil,fuel filter,good injector cleaner also tested all injectors for ohms and clicking all good,new air filter, and a new alternator, along with new vacuum tubes.

i noticed a skim on one of my spark plug wires its a burned mark i can see white but it doesnt go even half way through it think that can cause the problem? there new the previous owner had them done at Midas and zip tied them, or what about the wires being zip tied together does that effect anything? i also havent checked the timing i dont own a timing light(cant find the bolt holding the dist down anywho), and have a broken exaust bolt and have gas vapors under the driver side rear fender not as strong when i had the old gas cap but still can smell it am i suppose to be able to blow through that ventilator valve with my mouth pressure? the one under the gas tank.

 

If You do have to pull the head. You may want to talk to someone who knows how to remove broken bolts. I had a guy get mine out and he welded a nut to the top of the boken bolt. The bolt was flush with the head. Not sure how he did it but then all he did was use a wrench or socket to remove the bolt. Then I ran a tap in the hole just to clean the treands out. Hope this helps

 

I've never thought of that...that sounds like an awesome idea to remember for the future. Weld the middle of a nut to a broken bolt and twist it out..thats a new one for me i guess you learn something new everyday. I'm sure i'll break something and it'll come in handy.

 

yeah but if i have to remove the head i'll just use a left handed drill bit im sure that thing isn't caught up in there, i'll just lube the **** out of it if i remove the head, and use a left handed bit and hopefully it'll pop out.

 

If you need to remove the head, you might not want to tackle this project. It will take you a while to do, and probably leave your car inoperable for a while if you can only work on this a little bit at a time. There are many who run with missing exhaust bolts. If its only one, leave it alone i dont think this is hurting your gas mileage that bad.

 

Ah geez, I'm kinda in the same boat. . .I got one bolt broken off on each head, but it doesn't seem to be effecting gas mileage.

Maybe check your thermostat? I hear if its stuck open, the ECM will dump more fuel in the engine to get it to warm up.

 

If you do have to remove the head I took mine off and fixed it in about a weekend's time. When your injectors are out of the car, be careful with them, I damaged mine and didn't even know it.

 

Well, I have one in the worst possible place. Top bolt, #5 cylinder, flush with head, and I have removed the manifold to see. I'll have it taken care of at school when I have the valve work done (needs guide and seal work). I just hope that this is the LAST thing I need to do to get rid of my damn exhaust leak (other than the one at the rear cat flange which I can bend to seal when I feel like doing so). My mileage isn't that bad, I just want the damn exhaust noise to go away so I can actually hear what my exhaust note and new air intake sound like!

 

, same place as me #5 flush with head.

check the picture out.


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See the white residue? that's from the exhaust gases escaping.

 

Honestly....that dosent look bad at all. If its just the top bolt, you still have the lower that is kinda holding a seal.
Are you sure its flush to the head, or is it flush with the exhaust manifold....

Honestly...I dont think that is a huge problem. Doubtful if that would even cause you any problems.

 

im having the same problem at the same exhaust port, not hurting millage but you can hear it and it drives me crazy, and i have carbon coloring around the port

 

Holy old post, Batman!

Anyways, does anyone else think it's kind of funny a lot of us have the exact same problem (or similar... some have more of the bolt left than others) in the exact same place? Hmmm...

I still haven't taken care of mine yet... It's sealed, though, for the moment. I forgot to mention that there is a chunk of the upper part of the flange on the manifold missing... Oh well, that's just one less chunk I have to cut out of the flanges to do my 3100 top end swap.

 

for shure, its a crack up

 

I had a broken bolt on the passenger side rear, bottom bolt was broken off flush with the head. I took it to the local garage and they used a 90 degree angle drill and drilled it and installed a heli-coil. No more problems. The only issues I have had since then with these manifold bolts is only a few(the same ones all the time) continue to loosen up. I tighten them, and after about 50 miles of driving they loosen up again. Very annoying. But exhaust leaks at the manifold really do hurt gas mileage. At least for me it was noticable and had a horrible noise too.

 

Tell me about it. I used red threadlocker (good to 400* or 400 ft-lbs of torque) on the ones on my passenger's side and they still come loose. I have to keep checking the driver's side because I ended up using anti-seize on them because half of the old bolts didn't want to come out without breaking.

 

the reason for the los of mpg, is due to were your leak is, its not hard to figure out, the leak is beffor your ox censor, so it reads a diffrent ratio than your engine really is putting out, so it runs super rich and burns lots of gas, and it also hinders the performance of your engine on top of that,

 

I finally got around to replacing the back two on the driver side today. I soaked all the bolts with CRC Knock'er Loose (blows away PB and WD-40) when I got off work this morning and went out there in the afternoon. After about 10 minutes I had the PS pump Bracket bolts and the other manifold bolts out and it started to rain. Good old NC weather. So I'll have to go back out there tomorrow and take the PS pump off so I can finally get rid of that sputtering noise from under the hood.

Edit: It stopped raining at about 8 so I went back out there and pulled the PS pump and the manifold and I didn't break any bolts in the process. I gave up for the night though, I got one of the broken studs out and the other needs the grinder and wrench trick. It's either that or I'll weld a nut to it and crank it off that way.

 

Had the same problem with my son's car when we bought it. We were lucky. 4 Broken bolts, none flush with the head, and they all came out with a Vise Grip. I don't remember if you said so, but we replaced the ignition module and the CTS, after doing a tune, plugs, wires, cap, rotor, MAF sensor, and it is getting better all the time. If I can get the dang oxygen sensor out, I think we will be in good shape. Good Luck.

 

I got sick of breaking bolts so once I decided to swap to Jethot coated manifolds, I bought some studs from the Fiero Store so in the future, all I have to worry about is a nut falling off, rather than a bolt snapping off in the head! Although, when I did have a manifold bolt break off, I just took it to my mechanic to deal with!

 

I got the drivers side straightened out and it doesn't leak at all but there's a problem.

When I first cranked it up the idle was jumping between 3k and almost stalling while backfiring through the intake. I didn't run it long like that. After cleaning the IAC and looking everything over I found that I had pulled the brake booster vacuum line, I put it back on and it started and idled great. I used white knight anti-seize and washers under the bolt heads along with chasing the threads in the manifold and running a die over the bolts to make sure they were good.

But here's the problem, I still heard an exhaust leak! Now that the drivers side is not leaking I could hear the leak on the passenger side. I really don't want to mess with that EGR system because I know that I'll snap a few of those tiny bolts when removing them. I have a broken bolt in the back and at least one in the front, ugh...

And Is the guy that designed the 3.1l motor still alive? I would like to find him and punch him in the mouth for that bracket between the manifold/motor and the power steering pump. After messing with it for about a half hour and getting the girlfriend to try to get that bottom bolt started, I decided to remove the accessory bracket and the AC compressor, just to get to one bolt, ugh...

 

The 2.8 has the same power steering setup on the serpentine belt system. What I've found to do was to put the exhaust manifold bracket on first, putting the nut on the stud and the lower bolt in where the fuel pump's upper bolt would go if you had a mechanical fuel pump, and then putting the power steering pump into the bracket at the rear and the water pump bolt on the front, then putting the A/C stuff on.

And yes, I know this is a pain to do for just the exhaust manifold, but it's the easiest way I've found to get everything to line up.