Engine lift bolt is broke, now what?

broken exhaust studs are very common on this cars. i wrapped a chain around the bottom of the engine. another idea is to wrap the chain around the last 2 runners of the exhaust manafold

drill it out and hope an easy out takes it out the rest of the way. I have had to do this many times. just be careful and drill in the center of the stud

Well, it looks like I have to remove the intake before I can do anything. I can't get to the stud with a drill/easyout with the EFI and intake in place. I knew things were going to darn well. Is the exhaust manifold strong enough to lift the engine and tranny if I use a chain around the last 2 runners. It sure would be alot easier to repair the stud with the engine on a stand.

Brent
stock '78z

Stupid Hurts!!

you could try the chain thing, but from years of experience. NOT A GOOD IDEA!. pull the intake and exhaust and use another stud if you have to!

Option: Take off valve cover and use a piece of angle iron with two holes. One hole big enough for rear head bolt and other for attachment to hoist.

Actually, might as well pull intake/exh manifold before engine pull. Not hard once you get used to feeling for the exh. man bolts underneath that are almost impossible to see. On these a combo wrench often is less trouble than socket/ratchet. Give 'em all a good squirt of Marvel oil or some other penetrating oil. prior to wrenching.

Definitely take manifold off before trying to deal with broken stud. If you use next forward exh stud, for lifting, that should be fine - just keep lifting attachement snug to block so that risk of bent/broken stud is minimal.

New exh man studs from Nissan highly recommended.

Later,
Al

never thought of that, but wouldnt that cause a leak in your headgasket due to untorquing part of it? but i guess if you are taking the engine out to rebuild it, it dont matter.

NEVER try to drill broken bolts/studs through a manifold hole etc. I can't tell you how many times I've seen people basically destroy a head or an engine block trying to do this. And yes either manifold is way strong enough to lift the engine. Just wrap a chain around it and bolt it together.

NEVER use that rear hook on a used engine because that rear stud is always weak and they break very easily. It's much more dangerous to use them, you're lucky it's already missing!

steves you just answerd my thread above! thanks!

wobble sockets are in my honest opinion the easiest way to get to the exhaust bolts under the intake

this method may be a lil' too ******* for you taste but i got it from my uncle............... wrap a chain a round the tranny and you should be able to yank it out.........it works well!!!!

When you get around to it, avoid using the easy-out, those things are a b*itch to drill once they break off.

exhaust stud kit from pallnet HIGHLY recommended. higher grade than stock,,,and each stud has a hex head which makes for easier installation and threading the nuts on. comes with self-locking nuts.

email him at [email protected]

I dont know if you want to Yank your engine out, but you should be able to pull it out using the intake runners just fine. By using the intake your spreading the load over all the bolts. Just keep an eye on your lift hook and chain to make sure you have a balanced lift. Then you will be good to go.

What else is out there to use to back out a broken bolt other than the easyout. I've seen several people say that they break too easy, and I could break and anvil with a rubber hammer if you know what I mean.

Brent
stock '78z

Stupid Hurts!!

Get a thing to hook it into, like the front of the engine has...and unscrew one of the bellhousing to block bolts, put that in between, and tighthen back down. That's if you plan on pulling the tranny to. If not, just unbolt it, and then screw that one bolt back into the back of the block and pull it out that way anyways

Well, if you're pulling the engine, and removing the head, and you can get the engine out with an alternate plan, you could leave the stud broken off until you remove the head and then remove the stud with the head off. Alternately, a machine shop will remove the broken stud once the head is off for little or nothing. I had one that was broken on me, and the easy out broke(carbide is hard but extremely brittle)...the machine shop charged me $20 to remove it and didn't even mangle the threads in the head.

My point is that if you don't feel comfortable removing the stud yourself, a machine shop does it every day and its usually childsplay for them.

Exactly Bill. Removing studs isn't difficult if you know how and have some experience. A high quality square type easy out works pretty good (I use snap-on brand ONLY) but you still have to know when to give that up and just drill and tap the broken stud out. Break an easy out or a tap off in the hole and you've got problems.

Its easier to fix the threads with the head off the car and the manifold removed.
If the stud broke evenly and you have a flat surface to work on try and drill it out. Getting it to drill in the even center is critical. From there move up in drill size until you are at the last size before damaging threads. THis should be at the drill size that you would use to run a tap/die tool through to make the original size thread. At this time running a tap/die tool through often enough will get the old broken shavings to come out. If you do this slowly and carefully it works pretty good. If this fails you can install helicoils which will restore the threads to aircraft specs and you wont ever worry about it again.