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HELP - Rusted Bolts with no head

McClellanSean

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Joined
October 25, 2023
Messages
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City, State
Oceanside, California
Year, Model & Trim Level
1998 Ford Explorer
I’m trying to separate my headers from the rest of the exhaust and the bolts of course were completely rusted and after a bit of frustration I resorted to cutting it off leaving me with this problem. How do I remove the ends of the bolts while keeping the headers good.

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Best way? Clean those bolts up real nice with a wire wheel. Go buy some nice big nuts and grind the zinc plating off the top of them. Put them over the bolts, zinc-free side up. Fill that nut with weld, and cap it with weld nicely. Surface area is your friend.

Wire wheel the other undamaged end of the bolt for good measure.

Now, using a torch or induction heater, heat cycle that ****. As it’s cooling, use a good penetrating oil. I like deep creep, but it is $$$. Heat cycle it a bunch of times to work the bolt loose from the corrosion. Then give it one last good soaking with the oil and let it sit. Overnight? A few days? Whatever.

Now, start working it. I like to start by hand. Try alternately tightening (yes tightening) and loosening the bolt. Back and forth, a few degrees at a time. As you make progress, add pen oil. Eventually, you should be able to get it loose enough to just start cranking it out without having to wiggle as much.

If that doesn’t work, you can try using an impact. It’s a dicey move, but sometimes it works.

If it ends up snapping off again, then I would consider carefully drilling. Bringing it to a machine shop may be the best play at this point, as they can fixture it and carefully and accurately drill it out.
 






I’m trying to separate my headers from the rest of the exhaust and the bolts of course were completely rusted and after a bit of frustration I resorted to cutting it off leaving me with this problem. How do I remove the ends of the bolts while keeping the headers good.

View attachment 449173
I see you try heat.
1. I would clean up the studs with a wire wheel.
2. Fit two nuts on the stud ( double nut). You can grinder down the nut to make than thin.
3. Heat the flange up too cherry red (map gas or
a torch) and spray the stud with freeze off ( autozone). You will need to do this a few times.
4. You could also try, place a flat washer on the stud, install a nut , weld the nut too the stud. Heat up the flange, spray the stud and threads with freeze off. And try too rock the stud back and fore.
5. You can also try too, drill it out.
 






I just tackled this job on my '77 Monte Carlo's exhaust manifold. Didn't have access to acetylene torch or welder...and, the Map-Pro (true map gas is no longer available) torch I bought was still not hot enough to do much good. The base of the studs were literally welded with rust to the flange and, after trying various methods with heat & penetrant, gave up and decided to drill them out myself. Leveled it out in my bench vise and used my power drill with the leveling bubble on the back end to make sure I was drilling straight. Then used my tap and die set to restore the threads. Lots of patience required, but was successful.
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Excellent work!
 






rust is what is holding those broken studs in the manifold
You need to heat the cast manifold to cherry red/ orange
this expands the metal and will break the rust bond, then they can be removed
Oxy torch is the best tool here, or a induction heat tool, followed by map gas torch

Once the rust bond is broken they will un screw more easily then you expect
for years i fought with bolts like this, then finally I bought a torch.........
 






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