OMG!!! I just cannot believe my friggin luck. I get my stroker together it starts and runs pretty friggin good for a mail tune from Ion. Aside from the wrong header gaskets from SCE. Yeah I bought copper LT1 D-port gaskets from Summit, well guess what they friggin sucked. every damn exhaust port leaked like a SOB because the gasket port is 1/4" shorter than the primary. Oh well change the gaskets for some standard fibre gaskets ( the ones that came with the LT's from Jet-hot) and guess what !!! no more stinking exhaust leaks!!! wooo hooo.

Now I am down to the nitty gritty. Only problem now a small coolant leak from the steam pipe in the back of the heads. I only put on two seals instead of the 4 required. I know someones gonna say it. What an idiot right??? So i get 4 new ones from GM for like $5.06 each not too bad. I start on the drivers side all goes pretty good. I even leave the bolt a little loose to help with the p-side. Well the p-side as usual with anything over there wants to be a bitch. I look closely at the bolt and notice the threads are a little buggered. Hmmmm off to the grinder to straighten that out. Great the bolt goes in the hole right away!!! I snug it up and put everything back together. I start the car and the p-side steam pipe is pissing coolant everywhere. **** WTF i am thinking. since I cant see it, I put the socket back on it and it seems its not too tight. well you can probably guess what happens next right??? LOL it tightens some more then like a virgin on prom night, Its not tight at all any more and wont get tight at all!!!! Holy crap I must have said every curse word in the book, My wife came out and rolled her eyes, went back inside to TLC or some crap. to leave me to gloat in my misery.

Well before i take the whole damn thing apart again. I read about splitting the steam pipe on this board. Then I thought what the hell lets try a fix with the head still in the car. sure enough the threads are pretty badly screwed up. but fortunately there is still some threads in the head to grab the banjo bolt. Hmmmm I am thinking 3/8" NPT to 3/8" fuel line adapter that i spot in Autozone. it almost matches the banjo to a T. Speaking of a T, I buy a 3/8 brass tee, 4 feet of 3/8" ID fuel line, Some metal weld epoxy, and 4 hose clamps. I am gonna attempt to make my own steam pipe set-up, I actually think it will work. The 3/8" NPT fitting gets a coat of epoxy on the threads and it screws right into the buggered head hole. even tightens down respectably. I cut the steam pipe so that the tee will be inserted where the old p-side banjo hole was. and rubber tube the whole thing together. Holy crap could this actually work!!!! Well it will dry and set-up for the night and I will finish in the morning. Hopefully a $19.56 fix for my goofy *** cross threading a bolt into my ported and polished aluminum heads.

GM sucks for putting that crap so hard to get too. and why the hell is the motor under the windshield/cowl. Some brilliant design. my forearms are starting to look like hamburger. Oh well gotta love the quest for speed, and the 10 sec timeslip.

 

Where did you grind the bolt? I can send a couple of those banjo bolts to you for free if you want.

 

Hopefully it works out for you.

Rodrigues,
If SnkEatr doesn't need the bolts, I could use two. I stripped mine when I was taking the steam pipe off of the Iron LT1 heads.

 

Hopefully that works out for ya snkeatr, that would really suck. Are you sure the hose will handle the heat, I dont know how hot that gets but its a steam pipe, and steam is hot. If not you could probable fab up something by threading a new bolt hole with a slightly larger diameter, then drilling a hole down the center, and drilling a few holes in from the sides, not sure how you could fit it into the factory pipe hole, but im sure it could be done.


Just to make it easier, not for snkeatr, but when you buy new banjo bolts, and you should, get the new ones from GM, they redesigned them, at least they did from 94, the heads are about 1/4 to 3/8" long instead of like 1/8", so you wont strip the head at least.

 

I've read that a lot of people cut the steam pipe between the two heads and use a rubber hose in between. Makes pulling the head(s) easier since you only have to loosen the clamp on the rubber hose.

Oh, and I didn't strip the threads, I stripped the heads since they were rusted to ****.

 

dude what you need is a heli-coil set!!

you tap it larger with a special heli-coil tap and screw this insert in which is kinda like a sping in the shape of threads.... and you got yourself a strong new tapped hole the orginal size!!!! heli-coils won't strip out like alum or steel will, actually all aluminum should use heli-coils, much much stronger threads with no worries of stripping!!!

not sure where you can look, machine shops can get them, try a local automotive machine shop, they may have them on hand!

 

If your fix does not work get a helicoil put in. Like said before you can cut the pipe and just pull the one head. The Helicoil will get you back to the correct size and will be stronger than the Alum. threads that were in the head.

 

Well it seems like a success so far. No leaks and good flow. For those of you that replied with the heli-coil solution that would work great if there was a heli-coil/time sert in that size but there is not.