I have the last bolt hole on my passenger side head for the headers is crossthreaded. It's very hard to get a bolt in there about half way through, I put it in crooked accidentally. Every other bolt is nice and tight in there. I got the ARP 12 point bolts. Does anyone think this will cause a big problem not having the 1 bolt in? What should I do w/o getting it repaired?

 

Remove the cross threaded bolt and run a chasing tap through the hole to clean up the threads. If you're lucky, they'll be enough meat left to hole the bolt.

 

Great, and if all else fails..Just bring it in somewhere to have it tapped? I hope it can be done w/o removing the head. I hope tapping isn't that much money!

 

Same thing happened to me in the same hole. Where can these chaser things be purchased.

 

Same thing happened to me.

I picked up the chaser (or whatever its called) at lowes.

I don't remember size though, I can look into though.

 

It's just a tap and die (sp?) set. I did the same thing on mine except the hole before it.

 

A chaser is not the same as a tap. A chaser is not meant to remove any metal, just clean up the threads. A tap cuts threads.

3/8-16 is the size for manifold bolts.

 

When I went to install my new headers I thought some of the bolts were going in a bit crooked. It turned out that I need to tweak the holes in the header some cause the bolt was binding on the headers.

Can you completely run the bolt in the head without the header installed? If so then you need to open the header bolt holes up some.
Also look at the inside of the header bolt holes for horizontal marks left from the bolt threads. This is also a good indicator that the hole alignment is your problem.

One thing I did do was use an air wratchet to run the headers bolts in and out of the head till they could be installed completely snug with just my fingers.

When I installed my headers the final time I can tighten them down to snug without a wratchet.

I think this gets a lot of people in trouble on header installs. Just some food for thought.

 

IMO an air rachet and aluminum heads is a formula for failure. I would minimize "working over" aluminum with steel bolts to maintain the maximum meat on the threads. Just apply a small amount of antisieze grease to the bolt threads.

 

If that doesn't work, can I just get it tapped without removing the head or headers? I'll try to put some antiseize on it. There isn't THAT much left on the bolt, maybe half way.

 

I was trying to say I was chasing or cleaning the holes with a bolt and a wratchet to speed up the process. At no time was I torqueing anything down with an air tool.
This cleaned the holes out well enough that I can thread all my header bolt completely snug in with just my fingers.