Header Work

Quite a while ago, I sheared off one of the bolts holding one of the header heat shields to the header standoff.  It was my own fault.  I was putting in new stainless steel bolts and this standoff wasn't quite as long as the others.  So the bolt bottomed and I kept turning!

At that time, I drilled the center out in order to use a screw extractor.  All that did was to snap off the screw extractor flush with the top of the standoff.  Since the car is on the lift for work on the A/C and fuel pump, I decided to remove that header so I could work on it on the bench.

The first thing that I noticed was that the gaskets were showing signs of exhaust leaks.  This is the header side.  The head side was fine.

When I rebuilt the engine in 1983, I asked the machine shop about truing the exhaust headers, but with the single and two pipe arrangement, there was no way for them to clamp it without making a special jig.  So I ignored the problem and assembled the engine.

Since then, I've gotten a bench belt/disk sander.  It's not a big one, but just large enough to fit the header pipes on the flat surface all at one time.

After some sanding, you can see the partial results with the arrows pointing to where it's not flat yet.

I ended up using a couple of belts, but the results were fine, with everything flat and bright and shiny.  At least this header shouldn't leak.  Now I need to check the other three.

And with some work, the screw extractor and bolt remains were removed from the standoff.  A carbide cutter was used in a Dremel to rout out the extractor.  Using another screw extractor (more carefully) still didn't remove the bolt remains, so it was also routed out to where the threads just started showing.  Chasing with a tap got all of the remains loose and out.

So the heat shield is finally installed with all three (short) bolts holding it on.