ron91rs

When removing my exhaust manifolds, I broke the top bolt on #3 cyl off in the head.My brother tried to drill it out, but broke the bit off in the bolt My question is, IF I cant get it out, will it harm the engine/performance or will it be OK for a 16 yr olds first car ??

pizza_guy

WARNING. Venting below.

Nothing personal, but I don't know a single person who didn't end up in an accident or what not(their fault or not) with their first car. Myself included. A giant FORD(I hate fords) turned left in front of my first car. After that I got my second car.

My point is, a beautiful and elegant third-gen shouldn't be anyone's first car. Nobody can fully appreciate a vehicle till at least their second.

Sorry to rant. Your broken bolt should be fixed. Period. Yeah, it'll hamper performance, sound awful, affect your MPG, etc. etc.
The fact that you are even considering driving that car with a broken exhaust manifold bolt just displays the fact that I stated above. With a drill bit broken off in the bolt, I'd suggest pulling the head(not a job for a "newbie" either) and having a shop do it. That way, it's their butt if they screw it up. Yeah, it costs money, but if your not ready to spend it, get a new hobby. Cars are expensive.

If you are dead-set on doing it yourself, purchase/aquire a GM service manual, the neccesary tools(they make all the differance), and a weekend.

Again nothing personal, but if you think that lowley of a "16 year old's first car", you shouldn't be doin it with a third gen. If your going to half-***, get a four-cyl. That way you can half-*** half of a motor, break it, and realize not to half-*** things.

Experience is a brutal and honest teacher.

P.S. If somebody hits your car at above 10 mph, even if it's not your fault, your insurance company will total it, and there will be one less third-gen.

back in black

This happened to me as well,Good thing the brother in law own's a muffler shop.He held a nut with plyers over the broken stud and then tig welded the inside of the nut attaching the two together.After about 10 try's it finally twisted out without the nut breaking off.Be sure to hold the nut directly over the stud when welding so you don't weld the nut to the head instead.Also use lots of wd-40 on the stud before you try.Good luck!

Xophertony

heh... i did almost this same thing. we broke of one of the ypipe-manifold bolts, tryed to weald a stud onto it... ended up wealding a stud to the manifold itself... this was after breaking an easy out of in it... what a PITA. ended up getting a new maniflod from the junkyard in the end.

redbird8628

iTrader: (1)

torch it until its cherry red too, heat is your friend

sogabe

rusted bolts are my arch enemy..
if I have to say what I hate about my car,
it'll be my rusty bolts that gives me headache all the time!

manifold ones I bet they are pain in the *** bigtime.. good luck though

drdave88

iTrader: (3)

as far as a torch goes, if you have access to one, DO NOT heat the bolt, heat around the bolt. heat makes things expand, you dont want the bolt expanding in the hole, you want the hole to expand around the bolt. ive had the same thing happen, its not uncommon for them to break off. i got lucky though and my heads were coming off anyway. is there any of the bolt sticking out or did it break off flush or inside the hole? if its flush or inside, drilling is the only way, if its sticking out, heat and a vise-grips may save your butt.

V6sucker

what are you smoking?
seriously... cause you need to stop.

A single broken bolt on the ehaust will not do a thing.
It will NOT repeat NOT do ANY of the following...

Hamper performance
affect your MPG

It will ONLY sound bad if the gasket blows out and leaks.

You know what your statement about him driving the car like that is... you imposing your ego onto him.

I have a 383 powered 89 GTA with a butt load of mods.
I have driven this car for 3-4 days now with only 4 of the 6 bolts on the headers. You know what, they do not leak. They do not sound bad and they most certainly do not hamper the performance.

That was my rant at you. Next time try removing head from anus before posting that junk...

To the poster.
Have you actually removed the manifold yet?
If the other bolts came out easy enough (did not snap) and there is still the bolt shaft that you can access you have alot of options.
You only need to remove the head in the most dire after the bolt shaft has broken even with the head.

If the shaft is still there, hit with PB blaster for a solid hour before attempting.
1st try using vise grips. Those should get it out.
2nd do the afore mentioned welding a nut on the shaft
3rd you removing the head to take it to a shop to have them remove it for you.

Do not let people scare you, it is not a big deal just a series of small steps that when you look at the whole thing it looks scary.
I would suggest getting a manual if you want to try this.
Everyone has to get dirty sometime, hell at 14 I was removing and rebuilding engines.

drdave88

iTrader: (3)

v6sucker, not trying to start anything on here (it can be easy to do on this board, lol) but even a loose bolt will cause a leak, which will cause a change in MPG. if youve got any kind of an exhaust leak its gonna change your MPG and other things to some extent because what went into the engine, is not whats coming out, as far as the o2 sensor is concerned.

Gumby

yep cause exhaust leaks tend to suck in air which would make the computer go richer.

Not as noticeable on cars but then tiny leaks cause poppin problem on decel on motorcycles.

gottfuel

yes v6sucker i do agree with ya i belive there is no real sugnifigent loss of mph as far as that goes for some folks like us we umm how can i put it in words we pretty much estimate the insignifigance to the nearest,.,.lol of course befor ppl jump on me im not talking about torq settings or half assing major vidal mechanical componets,.,.im saying things that were willing to deal with for time being,..,prolly like to v6sucker and i for one.,dont feel there is anything wrong with a missing bolt on there as long as we know the other's are tight as heck,..,.,., I have drivin ride's that have had missing lug nut.,,.but then we do have standards and common sence,.,.,.i would never drive missing more then two lugs very hard or long,..,nor is it safe.,,.

NOw about this crap about a third gen is not a good first car for someone casu they wont appriciate it as much as a second,..,i just cant feel the same way,..,the first thing ive taught my young ones growing up is throttle controll i started it from there first 3wheeler,.and to there first car [3rdgen] ive taught them to always have throttel controll on there mind when riding.,.,and when ever they have upgraded to something more powerfull they would overcome the fear by reminding themself there in controll.,the times if ever any to remember were alterd from being severe because they were able to think about controll during the point of losing controll,.,.to me its the same as letting the kid once an awhile with your supervision do some dougnuts and sliding around in an old car.,,.let them scar them self a lil bit and feel what its like to lose controll a lil bit,..,i believe if more ppl had this kinda teaching the human error cause of crashes could and would go down,..,

oh well well lookie here looks like i started to rant a lil my self,. well dude guess we have something in comon after all

85berlinetta2.8

i think a thirdgen is agreat first car. parts are cheap, the v6 isnt too powerful, its easy to fix, and the junkyards have lots of v6's.

our exhaust manifolds dont come with gaskets stock.

if its not making a leak now when you run the car, it may not.

my car has 2 warped manifolds that leak and sound like shat

i get almost the same milage and its tolerable. i figure its cheaper to drive the car till the exhaust leak kills the heads and buy heads with manifolds attached from the wrecker with low miles than it is to pay someone to fix it.