when i bought my firebird there was a small tick/clicking coming from the engine. It goes away when its warmed up but when you accelerate the sound would still be there. I took it to the local chevy dealer just for a normal tune up. They said that the sound was from a missing bold on the manifold, and that made a small gap between engine and the manifold, he also said that the bold could have been sheered off. He said it could cost 200 to 500 to fix. When i got the car back i could see what he was talking about. just a small 1-2cm gap.

My first question is : will this rob any gas milage or power?
2nd: does a repair like this usually cost this much?
3rd: if left like this will there be any other breaks or problems?

Sorry for the huge story, but any help would be great.

 

Vacuum leak. Leaks are no good. But do you mean that the bolt is sheered off. Broke?
if it's broke you can take off the manifold off and replace the bolt.

 

yeah i havent checked if the bolt is just gone or broke/sheered off. if it is broke i think it will be a pain to drill it out of the manifold.

thanks

 

if it's broke and there's no way to get it out, you could drill on it till it's completely gone but you risk the chance of messing up the bolt hole. If you're gonna go that route then by a tap the same size of the bolt, so you can fix the threads. I think Sears sells this thing that looks like a tap which grabs the broken bolt. It requires you to drill a small hole on the bolt then you insert this thing that goes into the hole which screws out the broken bolt. I wish I could tell you what that thing is called but I can't remember.

 

screw extractor...a little tight to get in there, but it should work...i'd personally just remove the head and replace them with aftermarket heads...much cheaper that way