Hello again and thanks again for any replies in advance!!! Recently I had a shop (Bruce Performance in Jasper, GA) do the most crappy job on everything they installed!! Well they installed my headers and to no surprise I have a nice big header leak that causes the car to run like hell. Well today I went out to see if I could simply tighten up the header bolts and on bolt # 3 I put the wrench on and it was totally loose!! It now will not tighten and just spins in the hole. I tried threading a good bolt in there to no avail. So what do you guys think I should do? Its my daily driver and I smell exhaust all the time now. I know someone has had this happen before....so please enlighten me as to any fixes available. Thanks Again!!!

 

I guess you could tap it for a larger bolt I'd try that first, other than that, pray that there is a machine shop around there that can heli coil that with the head in the car

Edit: maybe you could try a longer bolt and catch a few threads... Depending on what sized they used(and stripped)

 

Larger bolt probably wont clear a 1 3/4" header, I'd say its time for some heli coils.

This is why I dont trust anyone to work on my car, if you can find a good shop and you have the dough thats great, otherwise its hit or miss.

Good luck

 

Thanks guys! What is a heli coil?

 

A shop will re-tap the whole larger, and put in a set of steel heli coils in the new thread, this way you can use your standard bolts for your headers, which are probably a 12 point right? Even these are hard to clear on some brands of 1 3/4", a normal 6 point bolt I dont think will clear any or many of the biggy headers.

I dont know that they could do this with the head on the car, but its possible, hopefully whoever you pick gets it straight and not crooked.

I got heli coils when I got my heads done, aluminum threads are weak, and it makes it easier to thread bolts without damaging the threads.

 

Ok, thanks again. Luckily its on the driver side so there is a little bit of room to work with. Anyone succesfully do this with the head on the car?

 

If you get the header out, it should be easy to do a heli coil with the head on the car. Good luck.

 

When I was installing my cam, I stripped the Crank Bolt!! Nobody to blame but myself. Luckily a machine shop managed to heli coil the thing so that I could put my crank pulley in without having to replace the crankshaft. That thing is hard, so I guess the heads should be much easier..