Probably obvious to you, but just in case… Those flange plates will hang up on the bolts unless you keep them parallel with the manifold flange. In your photo, the flange plate is canted over at quite an angle. Try tapping it back up to get it even on all the bolts before tapping it down evenly all round with a drift. Unfortunately, once the flange plate is down, I imagine the downpipe donut will be welded to the manifold… Keep going, you’re getting there, and didn’t break anything as far as I can see!
If that had been me, I’d have hacked the down pipe off close to the manifold with a grinder. Then the flange plates, studs and remains of the exhaust pipe could be dealt with on the bench.
Cut the down-pipes and deal with the rest on the bench!
It takes so much longer to drill out a broken stud than to carefully apply some heat and twist it out on the bench. Just do not damage the manifolds, over here they are worth a few hundred bucks, the studs will come out. The down pipes have no value.
The machine shop I use removed them while I waited outside (I don’t think he likes me watching). Anyway, it was cheap, quick and he could bring a lot more heat to the situation than I could.
Had to sneak some work in at the end of Spring Break. Finally got both exhaust manifolds loose. The first one successfully by lifting the car front end up disconnecting the exhaust downpipe at the muffler and extracting the assembly through the top. The second one I had to cut the downpipe near the muffler because it had fused itself together. Shown are the six exhaust valves through the exhaust port.
Yes, the inlet valves are more likely to suck oil from above as they sit in a vacuum in part on the ignition cycle. You might have a little bit of wear on you valve guides and as Wiggles says, stem seals (that come free in most head sets) will help control oil burning.
Your local engineering shop should be able to fit guides if you decide to take the head off. No big job, just make sure they know what they are doing. I have seen Jag heads ruined by poor machining.
I took the head off my car on Wednesday and replaced it. It was running again on Friday, so its not a huge job (the replacement head was ready to fit). Remember, I was in exactly your position only a few months ago, now its all running beautifully, and will be for years to come.
Geoff, I have never heard of that before. I suspect not.
Guides are cheap to buy and easy to fit, so thats what everyone seems to do.
I have had machine shops recess valve seats too much, meaning the clearances cannot be shimmed.
I have also had machine shops take so much off the face, the engine pings and the top of the head is still bent making the buckets jump of of the head, destroying everything. The head was probably scrap due to being warped before it went to the machine shop.
I am lucky that I have a good man up the road from me who knows what he is doing.
After three days of continual soaking with penetrating oil, I used a little carpentry to separate my two intake manifolds. It worked like a charm! And it’s a good thing I decided to separate them because the inner plug hidden from view has a large pinhole so persistence pays off in this case. Are these long studs threaded or press fit into place?
