Just had my truck get real loud lately. Tracked it down to the drivers side of the manifold. Looks like the pins/bolts rusted and broke off where the exhaust meets the manifold. The exhaust and oval flange still look fine but I dont know how to get the broken pins/bolts out.

Is it possible to fix this without taking the whole manifold off? Local repair shop quoted almost $800 to fix. First I dont know if they are pressed in pins or actual bolts... I was thinking maybe I could grind down the stubs and drill them out, and replace them with tempered bolts, but I am far from being an expert with vehicles.



I love my Durango (actually my 2nd) but the problems seem to be building quickly. Transmission pan rusted and leaking, replaced a fan clutch, drivers window track broke and recently almost lost my truck to fire cause by the blower motor resistor.

 

I know what you mean with the problems building. I actually seemed to fix all of mine I was having today.

Now to answer your question, you said "I was thinking maybe I could grind down the stubs and drill them out, and replace them with tempered bolts, but I am far from being an expert with vehicles." IMHO, that would be the route I would think of taking first. I mean I am far from being an expert as well, but that is the route I would take, how else is the repair shop going to get them out is what I am thinking. Someone in here might have another idea even a better idea, but m 2 cents say this is the route to go!

 

I am assuming you have aluminum heads? Ford has a big problem with bolts rusting off. I belive the fix would work on any vehicle, doesnt matte what brand, same problem. Anyway, there are a couple of ways to do this, one is your idea, and it will work but you better be good at drilling straight and centered so you dont have trouble getting new bolts in, also the manifold has to come off to do this, Second way if there is any stud left sticking out far enough to get a bigger nut welded onto it(again manifold must be off) it should come right out. if there is hardly any stud sticking out, I read a trick a man put in magazine, He put a flat washer over the stud and welded the washer to the stud, then welded a big nut to the washer, and then turned them right out. the reason for the washer is #1 it shields the head from getting weld to it, #2 its easier to weld a washer to short stud then trying to
weld down inside the center of the nut to the stud, Only downfall to these are if the stud breaks off again, it will be harder to drill after it has been welded on. All these will work, depending on what shape the stud is in, just take your time and be careful.

 

which engine do you have? I know the the two oval brackets on my 5.2 just have two bolts and two nuts holding the exhaust to the manifold and if you say the oval brackets are fine, all you should have to do is get two new bolts and nuts and maybe some washers and replace the old bolts. If thats the case probably a 15min job and no you won't have to take the manifold off. The 5.9 should be very similar if not the same as the 5.2. If you have the 4.7 then I'm not sure how it would work out for you then.

 

That_guy, please read his post, the bolt heads broke off so removing them is not an easy task as the head is gone, that is why he is having problems. If the head was ther ei would agree the manifold doesnt have to come off, but since the bolts broke it most definitely DOES.

as stated above you can try an easy-out (drill a hole in the center and this goes into it), or if you have enough bolt sticking out do the trick with welding a nut to the end, or even grind flats onto the threaded part that is sticking out, however if you have never done this before it is not an easy task, and you need be EXTREMELY careful that you get the hole centered (if you decide to go that route) and if you have enough sticking out to grind the flats into the bolt remove as little material as possible in order to preserve as much of the integrity that remains as possible.

 

I'm guessing that the manifolds on your durangos are different then. mine don't have any studs or anything like that. The bolts on mine aren't actually a part of the oval brackets, they just clamp them together. I guess the must have changed them somewhere along the line

 

the bolts wont be part of the manifolds, that would be difficult to do and still have them thread in nicely (think about it), but in order to have enough space to work on it the manifolds will be in the way, especially if it is the lower bolts that are the problem

 

I recently changed the Y-pipe on my 5.9L. I had the had like "that guy" with just bolts holding the flanges together. You will definitely need to remove the wheel well splash shields it will make a world of difference in getting access to the bolts. I understand the heads have broken off. What i did was carefully tap on the rusted bolts with a hammer and screwdriver to squeeze into a good spot on the shaft of the rusted bolts. first you should douse it with a rust breaker of course. I dont know if the 4.7 has threaded bolts in the flange, but if not, then tapping on the rusted bolts will eventually break them free and hopefully they will just fall out. Just be carefull not to hit too hard and break off the ear of the manifold.

 

tha'ts exactly what I did when I took mine off, jetuco, when I had to replace my flexplate. I took out the fender liners so I could get to everything, then removing them was easy.

 

I think I give you bad information about the bolts, I thought you were talking about the bolts that hold the manifold on the head, If your talking about bolts that studs that bolt the exhaust pipe to manifold, then you can do that with them on vehicle as long as you can get to them straight. Still if the bolt or stud is long enough you can weld a nut to it, but to make sure they dont break off you would need to heat the manifold very hot where they go into it, and then they should come right out with impact. From my experiences with these, if you dont heat the manifold really hot around that bolt they could still break off. sorry about that, I didn't read the post carefull enough