After finally resolving all the problems with my car from when i bought it off some moron I discovered another one yesterday, a bad exhaust leak from the right header. Today when I went to go and try fixing it i realized the rear bolt coming from every tube was driven in completely crooked, looks like the kid got lazy or frustrated and just drove them in. Kind of like first one in the row went in good second one when in crooked third one good etc etc. I went to take one of the crooked ones out and I couldn't get it to go back in straight. As i was looking it seemed like the header bolt hole wasn't matching up with the hole in the head, but I could be wrong because the left side went in perfect. I am going to take the whole header off to see if i can re-align it and get all the bolts to go in straight.

My question is if they are stripped how am i supposed to fix this? Tap and dye? and If so i guess the easiest way to do this is to take the the whole head off right? I wanna take it to a shop but Im afraid if they have to re-tap the holes i will be using most of my head/cam fund.

 

Best fix would be to remove the head and insert helicoils.

 

panic, run screaming with your tail between your legs and cry for a week.


honestly, just do what the guy above me said. or if you dont strip them to all hell, try to recut the threads.

 

w3rd

 

yea thats what ill try to do first i guess, re-cut the threads if i have enough room to get in there without having to take the heads off. If not, looks like the heads are coming off.. should be a fun project... NOT.

 

Pull em, heli-coil em, port em.

 

id tap it and use a larger bolt on that hole

 

Larger bolt will most likely have clearance issues with aftermarket header primary tubes.

 

that is true but it depends on the location. on mine some just clear i had to use a open end wrench and on other they missed by alot.

 

i wish i could port them already, i guess taking off the head will give me good practice for when i have to get them ported. I was originally going to tap them a size bigger but wrd said, i'll most likely have clearance issues so it looks like im going to fool around with some hemi-coils this weekend.

 

There is something called a time-sert or time-cert that is better than heli-coils. Might look into that also.

 

i just found the website its www.time-sert.com, i think im actually going to take this route, they sell a whole kit for 60 dollars and seem a lot better and easier to put in. They also carry them at all fastenal dealers which are all over the place to.

 

One other thing you could try to do is just get a thread chaser. I'm not a fan of recutting the holes cause that might make them loose and thay sooner or later will fail. You could also - if you have clearance, use some header studs and then fit the header over those and spin the nuts on. I have some clearance issues with my header studs, but I do not have problems with stripped threads, crooked head bolts, bolts coming loose, gasket leaks, etc.

 

I have a buddy that is a certified Harley Davidson mechanic at a Dealer and he swears by those time-serts. I would go ahead and try a thread chaser first, they might not be as bad as you think one you get the threads cleaned up and all.

 

You can pick up used heads pretty cheap these days. If it were me and I had to pull the head off anyway, I'd consider just buying a $100 set of stock heads and not messing with helicoils... Just my .02.