Doing a header swap and it seems one of the bolts is seized. Is there a good trick at getting these troublesome bolts out without breaking them?

PLEASE HELP!!

 

Breakerbar and a lot of penetrating oil

 

WD40 - Liquid wrench... tried them all.

The only thing that worked for me (the best) was PB Blaster

 

I don't understand why everyone says the bolts were so hard to get out? They were easy as CAKE to get out for me.

 

anyone here know what size the manifold bolts are?, i need to buy new ones for my 94 cause im putting on a Borla ypipe this weekend. i just wanna get all the supplies i need before i start it.

Would heating them up do any harm?
PLus when they are broke, cause they easily be pulled out from the manifold?

 

The manifold bolts should be 14mm. Don't heat them up, just put PB Blaster on it and you'll be fine. I suggest you take the cats off first though instead of the manifolds first.

 

well i only have one cat so its welded to the ypipe...ill see what happends with pb blaster..

 

and heat them up before extracting.

 

but what actually breaks on the bolts? are they hard to remove when they break so i can replace them with new ones

 

I'm sure you won't break a bolt. Get some PB Blaster on there and you will be FINE. If you THINK you will break a bolt, you probably won't. The bolts have some sort of "anti backing out" design to them which makes it seem like the bolt will snap off, but you will be fine. Just make sure you get a solid grip on the manifold bolts. Some people have broken the bolt off in the cylinder head, but most people I know have gotten them out smoothly. If I were you I would be some sort of loctite or something on there before putting the new header bolts in.

 

well im not puttin headers on the car, just changing the Ypipe and leaving my stock manifolds..so i was wondering if i break any bolts, will they come right out of the manifold?

 

Why are you just putting a new y pipe in? The changes from the stock to aftermarket y pipe are absolutely minimal gains. I don't know how the 94's are set up, but my 97 had 3 bolts holding the y pipe with the cat on it which snapped right off. 2 bolts broke, and one just came out, and it was fine. You should really get some headers on that thing.

 

it would be a waste of time if you just changed the y-pipe. you should of bought headers and a y-pipe instead of buying an aftermarket y-pipe for stock manifolds .

 

well, im putting a 3" borla ypipe on there because i dont think its worth me putting headers on my car..its loud enough with just the borla catback.I bought the y pipe used for a decent deal. I just dont wanna spend the time/ money to do the headers, but i know thats where all the Hp gains are. My car has 134K on it so im hoping after the summer/winter im looking into an LS1 car, and then i'll spend the money on LT's and other odds and ends. But for what my car sounds like now, im pretty happy with it and really dont want to spend that much more money into it. im doing 4:10's and this Ypipe and i think im done modding my LT1. time to move onto LS1 . People have told me this Ypipe have seen dyno results of 5-10hp, which is good enough for me.
And i just realized i totally Hi-jacked this thread

 

What does any of that have to do with anything? You even recognize you hi-jacked it yourself, but USUALLY the hi-jacker's post can start a new thread in the forum....yours just feels ling lounge rant... Also you say the car is loud enough with the Borla? Headers wont make it significantly louder, just cleaner/better sounding...unless you're assuming that everyone that gets headers removes their cats.

EDIT: PB blaster worked fine for me - you also may FEEL as if the bolts are hard to come out or really stuck in there due to to angle you are at. If your arm is all twisted up and you're trying to break it loose in some contortionist configuration, you may feel like you are applying more force. Try differnt angles/approaches and suddenly it will all eventually work out.