I've been trying to install my new header but can't get one bolt off. It's the one on the far left of the exhaust manifold. I've tried everything to get this damn bolt off but it's not budgin. So now I got to drive my car so I bolted everying back up but now I think I have an exhaust leak coming out of the left side of the manifold. I've checked all the bolts and they are on there tight. I got two questions: How can I get that bolt off? And more importantly, can I drive my car with that exhaust leak safely or will I damage my car?

 

not sure about the exhaust leak .. but to remove that bolt, try spraying w/some wd-40 .. wait 5 min and then try again. If no go, try using pneumatic tools.

 

Sprayed it with WD-40. I tried that quite a few times with no results.

 

Extend the length of the wrench that you are using. Put a pipe on the end of it or something. Gives you more force. And try hitting it. Just dont mess up the bolt

 

I've tried using a long wrench. Tried hitting it. Nothing is getting that bolt off.

 

Act of god.

Or...if youre bold...drill it out and retap with a larger bolt

 

Yeah it's about to come down to using a drill. Problem is I still gotta find a way to tighten a new bolt back on there and with that damn power steering column or whatever the hell it is in front of it, it's damn near impossible to fit anything right there. But do you think I will damage anything by driving around my city with an exhaust leak?

 

nah...should cause a problem. Just watch out for the cops, they might want to have a word with ya

 

It actually is not loud at all. I think the leak is pretty small.

 

ok norcallancer this is going to sound really silly but I fought with the same nut for hours last weekend and I finally did it like this.

First get the car on jackstands

Take all the plastic crap off the bottom

I think that nut was a 14mm, use 14mm open end but the other side of it the socket (O) side

Get a bunch of 3/8" extensions like 2 feet worth or something similar.

Get another person

Get the hydralic jack out

Lay under car with jack

Put 3/8" extensions or something like them on the pad of the jack

Have other person slowly raise jack while you guide the extensions up to the open end(C) part of the 14mm wrench.

Hold extensions on the jack pad with one hand, the other hand holds the extension in the open part of the open end wrench

Have other person slowly raise jack until nut breaks free

Now this really does work I did it with my bro at like 2 in the morning. May take a couple attempts with holding those extensions in there but this is the only way I could create enough force in such a small space. And when you go to put it back on there is room to tighten it cause the header gives you more clearence.

 

I use an impact wrench to get all those uber bolts off. It worked for my 2nd cat bolts and the o2 sensor, the most evillest of the evil bolts.

 

if you take the top of the cover off for the timing belt and then take out the few bolts that hold in a little metal piece on the side of the timing belt cover you can get to it easy, just make sure you cover the hole into the timing belt area because if you drop anything in there you are screwed, i droped on of the bolts that holds the metal piece in when i was installing my header and it cost $200 to get it out because a shop had to pull the engine half way out and take off all the pulleys to get the bottom half of the timing belt cover off and get the bolt out, so this means when our cars get enough miles on them to need a replacement timing belt it is gonna be expensive to replace because you have to pull the engine to do it, its kinda stupid you can't take the bottom half of the timing belt cover off without doing this.

 

Hey ghostrider he is talking about the bottom left nut on the exaust manifold. A socket will fit on there but no driver will fit on that socket, not even a U-joint will fit on that socket. Ratboy thanks for the heads up on the timing belt, now I will be dreading that day, but I would never remove all that just to get to that nut and risk dropping stuff into the timing cover.

 

Thanks for the input guys. I'm just gonna keep trying. I'll probably try to go the route that Ratboy said.

 

your leak that you may have shouldnt cause any problems unless you have any rubber tubing hanging down near where it is escaping... I had a cracked header on my old v8 bronco, sounded loud, but never caused any problems... most you might get is sometimes if you gun it while in idle.. it would sound a little like a backfire