Broken header bolt broke off,what now?
03-24-2013, 04:30 PM
#27
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Yea mine was too far in to get a weld on it.
Tried to drill straight in,put the easy out in and it snapped off inside as well.
Ended up sending my heads out to advanced induction to get it out and have the heads redone.Got a nice upgrade from it,but a pain in the *** none the less
Tried to drill straight in,put the easy out in and it snapped off inside as well.
Ended up sending my heads out to advanced induction to get it out and have the heads redone.Got a nice upgrade from it,but a pain in the *** none the less
03-25-2013, 09:05 PM
#28
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03-26-2013, 08:28 AM
#29
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now here is very important info, do not drill it. The bolt has been heat cycled and you can not drill it straight, i dont care if you have diamond bits, you just cant keep it straight. O what happens is you screw up the threads in the heads and maybe even punch a hole throguh to the water jacket, seen it done on a 351 cleveland in an older f-250.
an easy out will almost always break, and then you're in deep deep ****. My dad was a machinist, and i have never heard more bitching than when he got ahold of one someone broke one of those off in. They're too damn brittle and unless you keep em perfectly straight... Snap! The welding thing almost always works. My dad did it for me hundreds of times at the shop i work at.
.......................
yea mine was too far in to get a weld on it.
Tried to drill straight in,put the easy out in and it snapped off inside as well.
Ended up sending my heads out to advanced induction to get it out and have the heads redone.got a nice upgrade from it,but a pain in the *** none the less
Tried to drill straight in,put the easy out in and it snapped off inside as well.
Ended up sending my heads out to advanced induction to get it out and have the heads redone.got a nice upgrade from it,but a pain in the *** none the less
.......................
04-01-2014, 03:12 PM
#30
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Yes, I know...I am COMPLETELY reviving this thread from the dead, but it's on purpose. 
At first I didn't know why so many people were suggesting to use a welder...but then after thinking about it I realized that you'd weld to the broken bolt and *not* the aluminum cylinder head.
I google'd around to see if I was thinking about this in the right way and I found a youtube video that confirmed my thinking. For anyone who works better from visuals check this out:
I'll be trying this on my 2004 Tahoe tonight. I was removing the passenger exhaust manifold and the rear (at firewall) factory bolt seemed to have broken in the past as it practically broke of without any force.
At first I didn't know why so many people were suggesting to use a welder...but then after thinking about it I realized that you'd weld to the broken bolt and *not* the aluminum cylinder head.I google'd around to see if I was thinking about this in the right way and I found a youtube video that confirmed my thinking. For anyone who works better from visuals check this out:
I'll be trying this on my 2004 Tahoe tonight. I was removing the passenger exhaust manifold and the rear (at firewall) factory bolt seemed to have broken in the past as it practically broke of without any force.
04-01-2014, 09:24 PM
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Went to do my install tonight. Started by checking to see what kind of shape the bolts were in. 2 were already gone, and another literally snapped when the wrench touched it.
Good thing I'm on vacation!
Good thing I'm on vacation!
04-02-2014, 02:13 PM
#33
Pulling the head also allows to thoroughly clean up the top-end of the engine. I degreased everything, cleaned off the carbon deposits from 104k, and cleared the oil from the intake manifold. I also smoothed the walls of the intake ports with a dremel and replaced the valve springs. Practically a "fresh" engine as the bottom end is doing just fine.
04-02-2014, 11:16 PM
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THIS FIX WORKED AWESOME FOR ME!!!
Last night I installed a new set of headers. As I was removing the stock exhaust manifolds the rear bolts that hold the exhaust manifolds on my 2004 5.3 Tahoe closest to the firewall snapped without much effort on my part. The others all came out fine.
Based on what I've researched it's best to plan for this to happen instead of hoping that it doesn't. So get your welding skills tightened up before you pull the exhaust manifolds off your ride.
After I removed the drive side exhaust manifold I snapped a photo of it. Here's a shot of the driver side bolt snapped off well below the surface of the cylinder head:
I found it was easier for me to cut a spare bolt to be really short and then weld that on. I did the welding without removing anything from my truck...just remember to plug the other exhaust ports so that you don't get junk in them from welding:
Once it cools enough from the welding you slowly work the bolt back and forth as you advance it out:
Once you extract the bolts you have a really cool story and a cool souvenir:
Or, in my case, two really cool souvenirs:
And yes, I did get Darth Vader to hold the bolts for me while I took a photographs.
Last night I installed a new set of headers. As I was removing the stock exhaust manifolds the rear bolts that hold the exhaust manifolds on my 2004 5.3 Tahoe closest to the firewall snapped without much effort on my part. The others all came out fine.
Based on what I've researched it's best to plan for this to happen instead of hoping that it doesn't. So get your welding skills tightened up before you pull the exhaust manifolds off your ride.
After I removed the drive side exhaust manifold I snapped a photo of it. Here's a shot of the driver side bolt snapped off well below the surface of the cylinder head:
I found it was easier for me to cut a spare bolt to be really short and then weld that on. I did the welding without removing anything from my truck...just remember to plug the other exhaust ports so that you don't get junk in them from welding:
Once it cools enough from the welding you slowly work the bolt back and forth as you advance it out:
Once you extract the bolts you have a really cool story and a cool souvenir:
Or, in my case, two really cool souvenirs:
And yes, I did get Darth Vader to hold the bolts for me while I took a photographs.
Last edited by digitalfiend; 04-03-2014 at 12:06 AM.
