Nuts or bolts?

I've been shooting pb blaster at what looks like nuts on my exhaust manifold for like a week now. Today (just now) I go out to try to see if they'll break loose, and on the first two I turn they're acting like bolts coming out of the head, not nuts coming off studs attached to the head. Since I was expecting to have nuts backing off, I tightened them back down, and they did seem to hold in, no signs of slippage/strippage. Then I came straight in here to say wtf??!!

Is this a bad sign, or can I just go with it?

 

Sounds like the nuts are just locked to the studs. take them out and double nut the other end and remove the original nut.

 

But can the studs be reused without any problem to reattach the manifold?

 

unless they get damaged while you are trying to remove the nut I don't see why they couldn't

 

Sweet, thanks! I'm back on it!

 

maybe. you'll find out when you go to torque it back on.


I'd replace them for piece of mind. But if not at least chase threads with a tap and die.

 

I just did tear apart my engine and my exhaust manifold did have 2 or 3 of those nut/bolt things, they wierded me out too.

 

get a new stud kit from LCE, worth the $$, not even that expensive.

 

get some new studs from advanced auto.

 

Several of mine came out as well. I just took vice grips and got the nuts off them (took like an hour to do it too ) and screwed them back in the head and reused them. They were in perfect condition so there was no reason to replace them.

You can try using some locktite but it will probably just burn off.

It doesn't really matter if it is the nut holding the manifold or the stud. It's all good.