Broken studs on exhaust manifold..

[Jeff Aronson]

Rick,

I used a lot of anti-seize upon installation of new studs and brass nuts to help minimize corrosion. I also found that loosening and tightening the nuts a few times between oil changes helped reduce the chance of seizing up.

That said, I've noticed recently that a one nut simple won't tighten up even though there's a wobble in the header pipe. I'm probably headed towards new studs soon, too.

Jeff

[daveb]

drill and tap the manifold for 3/8 or M10 studs. The 5/16" studs are just too wimpy for the job.

[SafeAirOne]

drill and tap the manifold for 3/8 or M10 studs. The 5/16" studs are just too wimpy for the job.

Or, to keep it more consistent with Rover engineering, you may want to drill and tap one for 3/8, the other for M10 and probably want to throw in a BSF thread on the other one.

[yorker]

The genuine exhaust nuts are brass- or they were when I last bought them. That does help. If you buy others you never know what you might get.

[LaneRover]

Or, to keep it more consistent with Rover engineering, you may want to drill and tap one for 3/8, the other for M10 and probably want to throw in a BSF thread on the other one.

Don't forget the SPOT fixes with c-clamps and old hangars.

[TriedStone]

If you do end up having to use a treaded insert, http://www.timesert.com/ are much better than helicoils. A bit pricier but well worth it.

[NickDawson]

watching this thread with interest... exhaust manifold is the only thing keeping me from passing Va inspection ... going to try and put it off until fall, but glad to know what I may be up against.

[Donnie]

Today i was going to remove the rusted front exhaust pipe from my IIA and after days of soaking the nuts with PB blaster i still managed to break 2 of the 3 bolts off. I guess the good news is there are about an inch of the studs still sticking out of the manifold. Am I in big trouble? are the studs reverse threaded in? any help would be great! thanks

Everyone has pretty much covered your query, I'll suggest getting a blue tip "torch" set up for the future, a can of never sieze, I like the copper color better than the grey, brass nuts for your studs & a little luck........

[Cutter]

Another aspect of using brass nuts apart from less seizing worries was the softness vs/stud as to preserve the integrity of the studs threads and if you mangle something if it does somehow get stuck, its more likely going to be the nut. My rover's manifold (6cyl) some previous owner just drilled out and put carriage bolts. Not pretty but it works.

[rbonnett]

Thanks all for the great info. Since I have a couple other reasons to pull the head at some point, my plan is:

- Pull the head; take it and the exh manifold to the machine shop
- Have inserts put in for the manifold studs in the head as well as for the down pipe in the manifold itself
- Use lots of anti sieze when I reassemble

The fixings for the down pipe did come with brass nuts. Hopefully with the inserts and anti sieze things will be easier next time.

Jeff A. - the instructions that came with the exhaust did mention using washers when fastening the down pipe in case the nuts bottomed out before everything was tight. Have you tried that to correct your wobble?