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Date:         Tue, 11 Oct 2011 04:56:01 -0700
Reply-To:     Stephen Grisanti <bike2vcu@YAHOO.COM>
Sender:       Vanagon Mailing List <vanagon@gerry.vanagon.com>
From:         Stephen Grisanti <bike2vcu@YAHOO.COM>
Subject:      Re: Exhaust fun never ends - some progress
Comments: To: Dennis Haynes <d23haynes57@hotmail.com>
In-Reply-To:  <BAY152-ds2C9288CEF0773749B83ACA0E20@phx.gbl>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=utf-8

Good advice that I hope I won't need.  We shall see.  Thanks!   Stephen

--- On Mon, 10/10/11, Dennis Haynes <d23haynes57@hotmail.com> wrote:

From: Dennis Haynes <d23haynes57@hotmail.com> Subject: RE: Exhaust fun never ends - some progress To: "'Stephen Grisanti'" <bike2vcu@YAHOO.COM>, vanagon@GERRY.VANAGON.COM Date: Monday, October 10, 2011, 11:32 PM

These steel nuts in the aluminum heads have a way of becoming one! If there is enough stud to get a nut threaded then a MIG welder with some skill may be able to weld the nut onto the stud. The super heating of the stud will expand it maybe put enough pressure to free the threads when it cools and the welded nut can be used to wrench it out. The weld won’t be strong so don't try too hard. With welded nut in place an oxy-acetylene torch can heat the head enough (real hot real fast so heat don’t get to gasket) to get it loose. After that cut flush and drill it out. Forget EZ out. It will only be a hardened broken piece to deal with. Drill it out and re-thread with a quality tap set. Starting, plug, and bottom tap. If you get a mess it will be Heli-coils to the rescue.

Dennis

-----Original Message----- From: Vanagon Mailing List [mailto:vanagon@gerry.vanagon.com] On Behalf Of Stephen Grisanti Sent: Sunday, October 09, 2011 5:26 PM To: vanagon@GERRY.VANAGON.COM Subject: Re: Exhaust fun never ends - some progress

Okay, one down, one to go.

I tried double-nutting by grinding two standard nuts to about 5mm thickness so I could fit two on the stud and all they did was unscrew off the studs. Could not get the nuts double-nutted tightly enough to break the studs loose without stripping something. Mind you, I've been alternately heating/icing and applying PB Blaster so the studs are getting a workout.

Splined-type extractor did not work. Screwed it onto the most accessible stud and put the wrench on it and it then bottomed out against the head, and more turning pressure merely carved off some of the remaining threads and the tool slipped off. Did the same thing on the second stud.

Then bought a cam-type extractor and that walked itself off the end of the first stud, not having sufficient length to grab onto. This tool is designed for a stud stub about 1" long or more. I think it would be fine for that but is not helping me on these short ones and it would not fit on the second stub and give me room to use a ratchet on it.

What did work for the accessible one (#1 cylinder) was a small pipe wrench with a cheater bar on it. I was looking for my larger Vise Grips and found my large and small pipe wrenches. Large was too clumsy and required too much swing and the little one with finer teeth worked to turn one of the studs out using that 1/16th-of-a-turn-at-a-time tedious progress that I dared not object to,  but access on #4 is just too limited for it to be able to get a bite and then still have room to swing. I may have to drain the coolant and remove the big metal pipe running from the water pump to the thermostat housing. That's a lot of hassle just to increase the amount of room to swing a wrench but it's that or call a welder for the washer/nut trick. I'm philosophically considering this as an opportunity to change the coolant but I'd really rather not take more stuff apart.

At least it's a nice day out and it's not like I'm wasting a cold, nasty or miserably hot day and I found one more thing.  The converter thieves that I thought made the single cut through the J-pipe and then blew off any further work to steal my cat?  I had to remove the cat/muffler/tailpipe assembly in order to cut off the old J-pipe flange and found that someone had tried cutting one of the cat bolts also.  The thieves were more industrious than I thought.

Stephen

--- On Sun, 10/9/11, Stephen Grisanti <bike2vcu@YAHOO.COM> wrote:

From: Stephen Grisanti <bike2vcu@YAHOO.COM> Subject: Re: Exhaust fun never ends To: vanagon@GERRY.VANAGON.COM Date: Sunday, October 9, 2011, 10:49 AM

John, Thanks for the tip.  I know about EZ Outs and have used them once or twice but am leery in this application.  Numerous posts on the Samba warn against them due to breakage, making further extraction even more difficult.  In addition, there is drill access for the forward stud but not for the rearward one.  I'll post what eventually works.

Stephen


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