97 5.0 issues

[lugnut1009]

Well today I finally had a chance to pull the lower intake. Pretty sure I found the coolant leak issue and possibly an intake leak, although I doubt there was an intake leak here.

Front drivers side bolt was broken in half and that’s where the coolant was leaking from. Now I just need to get it out! I tried drilling for an ez out but every time it would walk off the side. Looks like I may have to weld a nut on to back it out…. Will update when more progress is made

 

[Pete Deering]

Well today I finally had a chance to pull the lower intake. Pretty sure I found the coolant leak issue and possibly an intake leak, although I doubt there was an intake leak here.

View attachment 424222

Front drivers side bolt was broken in half and that’s where the coolant was leaking from. Now I just need to get it out! I tried drilling for an ez out but every time it would walk off the side. Looks like I may have to weld a nut on to back it out…. Will update when more progress is made

Did you center punch the bolt before drilling?

 

[lugnut1009]

Did you center punch the bolt before drilling?

Yep, not my first rodeo. Even after the first one walked off I tried “x”-Ing the top of the bolt with a chisel, and recenter punching it. Still walked.

 

[C420sailor]

Welding is the way to go. If I have the room to comfortably get a stick/gun/torch in there, that’s my go-to.

It’s also kinda fun. Love welding haha

 

[lugnut1009]

It will be a couple days until I can get a welder up here and try it. Until then I’m going to be soaking it with wd40 and maybe it will free up.

 

[410Fortune]

I fought that bolt on my old 96 for 3 months
I broke a drill bit off inside the bolt
Mine was on the passenger side
I kept buying better and better drill bits because I had to drill through the old broken bit. Eventually I got it out, re tapped the hole and ran a new bolt. That was many many years ago I have learned a lot since then about extracting broken bolts

Welding a nut on the exposed stud had never really worked for me, there is just not enough room inside the nut to get a good weld on the broken piece. So the method I use these days is a piece of flat bar, with a hole drilled in it large enough to fit over the stud
Now I can get a good weld all the way around the broken stud
Use the flat bar to work it back and forth, get it turning and finally back it out.
Has worked every time I have used that truck now… knock on wood
I have pics of the method if you would like

 

[lugnut1009]

Thanks, don’t know if I can get even a nut down there to weld onto it with the angle of the head the way it is. Really hoping some penetrating oil will work it’s way down and free it up. Going to grab some Kroil oil today, best stuff I know of for this.

 

[C420sailor]

For the welding trick, I’ll carefully build the stud up with weld, then put a nice big nut on top of that weld, then weld the hell out of it. If you just plop the nut over the flush stud and try to fill it with weld in one go, it’s a dice roll.

I’ve snapped off an EZ out in an aluminum engine case once…swore them off after that

 

[410Fortune]

ez out has never worked for me either, especially not on these
Kroil is good stuff
Heat is your friend
That is a REALLY tough bolt to extract...........if you can drill it down the middle and keep increasing size until you are at threads.... blow the drilled material out and then chase the threads.
Worst case scenario here, this is not going to go easily
DO NOT BREAK THE DRILL BIT OFF!!

 

[lugnut1009]

ez out has never worked for me either, especially not on these
Kroil is good stuff
Heat is your friend
That is a REALLY tough bolt to extract...........if you can drill it down the middle and keep increasing size until you are at threads.... blow the drilled material out and then chase the threads.
Worst case scenario here, this is not going to go easily
DO NOT BREAK THE DRILL BIT OFF!!

I ended up having to drill out the entire bolt and retap the hole. I was pretty fortunate to get a good center drill on it and stepped it up 3 times.

So last night I got the lower intake back on, fuel injectors and fuel rails back on, and today I hope to get the upper back on and test run it. Still waiting on a new thermostat and gasket, but I’ll fire it up on water and flush it a few times anyway.

 

[410Fortune]

Excellent news!

 

[CDW6212R]

Good work, removing a broken bolt is one of the worst things to have to do. My first was a water pump bolt in my first car, a 351C-2V engine. I was young and broke a few drill bits, and had to go back with a 3/8" bolt instead of the 5/16" as I recall. I still have that block and crank etc, machined 30+ years ago, and going to rebuild as a 351-4V eventually.

 

[C420sailor]

Well done.

I’ve actually been researching inductive bolt heaters. Frozen bolts are what make 85% of my jobs take way longer than they should.

 

[lugnut1009]

Well done.

I’ve actually been researching inductive bolt heaters. Frozen bolts are what make 85% of my jobs take way longer than they should.

I've seen videos on them, seem to be a really quick and easy way to get the heat in a tight spot.

 

[lugnut1009]

Finally had time to get it all back together. And although I don’t have a thermostat yet, I just put the housing back on without a gasket and filled with water. But for the good news…


IT RUNS GREAT!!! Now I have this out of the way I can work on cleaning the inside, replacing bad ball joints, and changing fluids. Can’t wait to get this thing road worthy. Thanks for the help guys.

 

[410Fortune]

That is good news!!!!

I have a bolt buster
It is wicked!
I do not always want to bust out the torch and the torch likes to melt stuff
Bolt buster I cannot make a huge deal about yet I have only used it 3 times
Works awesome!

Very good tool to have in any shop
Heats up red hot in seconds

 

[lugnut1009]

UPDATE AGAIN

The cheap fuel injector fix didn’t last long. Don’t know if the injectors were just bad from sitting up so long or what. But I ended up replacing the entire set with a refurbished Bosch set off of eBay. Just took it for a 20 min ride and it ran great. Everything with the engine should be good now. The injector tester was cool, may come in handy one day, but really just gave me false hope.