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Well i got everything off, now I just got to get it towed to the muffler shop to have them weld them broken bolts out, but I can't get the car onto the dolly.
I will be towing it with the back wheels on the trailer but I can't even get it on the trailer
Pull the bolt and gently pull. When you reinstall take the dipstick out first. It sometimes takes a little finagling to get it to rotate in properly, but once it's lined up just push back into place. You will feel it engage.
I was able to rotate the dipstick assy just enough out of the way to use a socket and 3/8" ratchet to get the plug out. Then I turned it back and got lucky it stayed stayed put and drama free.
The second time I made the mistake of removing it and suffered for 3 hours until I somehow managed to use the Jedi mind trick and it just fell in after some very frustrated stabbing.
Well i got everything apart today and towed it to have the 3 broken bolts removed, what a pita all this was. Took a few trys on each bolt cause the welds kept breaking, but they finally came out, guy charged me 20 bucks a peice. Now maybe within the next few days i can get this thing all back together.
These 3 bolts were broke of inside the head, no threads sticking out at all. Drivers side front and rear, and passenger side rear.
60 bucks labor to get the bolts removed and a 50 buck dolly rental, 110 bucks well worth it to me.
The driver rear was the worst one, took about 4 different nuts for it to finally stick. The driver side front came out first try, and the passenger rear took 2 trys, i think the driver rear was harder to get to than the passenger rear, cause the ac lines in the way and the brake stuff
Also took out the coolant temp sensor, didnt know that much coolant would pour outta there, but i lost the sensor or miss placed it, i cant figure out where the hell i put it or if i dropped it or what. lol, anyways gotta buy a new one i guess.
Can i install the new plugs before i install the headers?
It was a bitch with the oem manifolds in the way tryin to get the plugs out.
Just wonderin cause it looks easy with no manifold in the way.
What else can i do to help make the install go easier?
Should i use anti seize on the plugs? And should i reuse the oem spark plug heat sheilds?
Any tricks on how to cut or measure the muffler piping right to get it to hook to the connection pipes?
Thanks for the help so far everyone
I sure the hell hope the install goes easier than it was removeing all that oem junk mess
Yup, thats what mine looked like too. Once the welder gets the hang of it, goes pretty smooth. As for the O2 sensors, I bought new ones and kept the old ones installed in the cats for every two years when I have to get smogged. Good ole commiefornia!
Do i use the washers that came with these arp header bolts?
I went ahead and put the spark plugs in first. Hopefully I don't bash the headers on them.
Got the wires heat wrapped up and put the starter blanket on.
Now got to wait a few hours for AutoZone to get that solenoid wire that broke on my starter, so i can replace that pigtail with ac delco pt170.
Then ill be ready to install the manifolds.
And i finally got all the o2 sensors out and onto the new pipes. The rear sensors i needed to use the closed end of a 12 point 7/8 wrench, the plug went through the hole to get to hammer the wrench on there
Use the washers. Also, you have to remove most of the spark plugs to get the headers on. In practice, I think the rearmost ones can be left in, but you need to be very careful because bashing your headers into them will break them. My advice is to remove all of them to maximize your space to work, since you want to minimize chipping on that ceramic header coating.
The most annoying part about installing headers is getting them sufficiently aligned to get the bolts in. Before you get under the car, I recommend placing your hydraulic jack under the car with the handle sticking out by the front door. Once you worm the header up between the engine block and fender wall, place the hydraulic jack pad under the collector so that the header doesn't fall down when you get out from underneath the car.
Once you verify that the header is free to move upward and not jammed against anything, slowly pump the jack to bring the header into position. You'll have to fine-tune the position of the header with one hand while you thread the bolts with the other. Fortunately, with the jack there you'll only have to position the header with your free hand and not support its weight while positioning it.
Ok i pulled the plugs back out, but how do i remove the steering shaft? I loosen the bolt closest to the firewall and then it didn't budge so I put it back in and then remove the bolt right below it and it still won't move.
Do i also need to remove the bolt at the bottom right where it connects to the rack?
The shaft is probably a little stuck on the stub. See if you can get an extension of some sort--even a piece of scrap wood, and knock it with a hammer to see if it will loosen. You can also use a large flat head or pry bar with something under it to leverage against the base to back it off the stub. The shaft should collapse into itself to come off the stub and you'll need to move it to the side as best you can. Even with it to the side it's a tight fit and you'll need to use some force to get the primaries past. Once you've got them up by the block though, you can reach up from below and start the rearmost bolt to get them hung loosely, then move up top to insert gasket and get the other bolts in place.
Ok so what shaft bolts need to be lossened or removed? And i will have a helper just to hang the headers for me, while im under the bottom they can get a few bolts started for me.
08-23-2017, 01:23 PM
