ok, i finally got my headers in today(been waiting ALL day!) and i plan on tackling them tomorrow after work. the hobby shop is open till 9pm and i get out of work usually by 4:30pm. first question is, do you think i can get them done by 9? second question, any tips on doing them? i also have a broken bolt in the block that needs to come out(another reason why i'm replacing them). that should be fun.

 

Spray all the bolts with PB blaster or some other kind penetrating oil tonight and keep spraying them all day tomorrow. It will make everything come out a lot easier, especially the one that's stuck in the block.

 

Luckly I didn't break any bolts when I removed them from the manifold. There was one that was stuck and used a propane tourch to heat up, then came on out. The truck wasn't driven for a week and was sprayed every day with pb blaster until the headers were put on. Call me cautious.... but the extra prep time may mean the difference from breaking a bolt or not.

 

i unfortunately don't have any pb blaster, only wd-40. which is flammable. i dont wanna go to work tomorrow morning in a flaming truck lol.

 

when you tighten the headers to the Y pipe, tighten each side a little and alternate back and forth. If you just go hog wild on one side, the other will most likely leak. You'll hear it if you have a leak.

 

thanks for the info guys!

 

which bolt is broken on the exhaust? If it is the back one by the fire wall on the drive side you will need to remove the power brake booster to get at it better. find a right angle drill makes drilling alot easier than a normal drill. the bolts are not bottomed out so drill straight and a small hole all the way thru you will feel it when it hit's the end. get PB blaster and spray inside of hole wait an hour then use bolt extractor. I personally would wait till the weekend to do it so I could take my time in cleaning the surface areas and make sure everthing lines up.
I had 2 on the pass /side broke on the back and one on the driver side broke in the back took all ady on a saturday to fix

 

IF you havent blasted your headers with anything yet, and you have a torch. Heat up the bolts, it should make them come out a little easier. Heat, let it cool, then heat, cool. Also if your haveing trouble with your boltz, i.e theyre rusted as hell...throw on the socket (if you can get it on) and the wrench, grab a hammer and give it a stern wack. Not to hard to snap the bolts, but hard enough to loosen them up. Learned both of these tricks after asking around local shops when i did my headers. Helped alot and didnt break any bolts. When you tighten them, as its been said before, alternate and dont fully tighten or you WILL have a leak.

Also, invest in some stage8 locking header bolts. Then youll never have to worry about your headers coming loose. They run about 50-80 bucks but easily one of the best investments ive made so far.

If you do get a bolt stuck in the block, run over to sears or somehting and get a bolt extractor kit, handy to have anyway. My headers were rusted to all hell, but they came off fine. One bolt was a PITA but eventually I got it out w/o breaking it, the heat helped.

 

well headers got installed last week/end. oh boy was it fun! lol. i started friday after work. got to the shop at about 530 and worked until 9. by then everything was bolted on, just not finished, so we pushed it outside the stall and i worked till midnight on the pavement. that was fun...not. everything was good until i fired it up and realized i had plug wires mixed up. by that time, after i had been working a combined 18 hours in one day, i decided to call it a night. went back the next day after work and finished it up. still have a small exhaust leak on the left hand side, but i just havent had the chance to get at it yet and the shop has been closed the past 2 days. other than that, everything was a pain in the *** and it was so worth it

 

Okay I'm doing my headers and new muffler in a couple hours in class.
I just need to take off the y-pipe, heat/cool/ease off the header bolts, try not to lose one in the block, watch my spark wire positions when re-installing them, anti-seize the bolts maybe?, then slowly tighten each side of the y-pipe to no chance of a leak.

Do I have it all pretty much down?