Everything was going just fine until...a bolt broke inside the drivers side head [:@] The bolts were old, rusty, and pretty tough to remove. Unfortunately I don't have the time/money to get the bolt removed, so my dad just said to install them with 1 less bolt...I was kinda reluctant to do that but I didn't have much of a choice.
So my question is, how would I know if I had a leak? Also, are the headers suppost to be heard from just behind the engine?
This is my first real bolt on and I don't want anything to go wrong.

 

well if you can hear them from right behind the motor.. sitting in the cab yea i would say you have a leak.. i can almost garuntee that they are leaking with them missin one bolt. the EXACT same stud did the EXACT same thing to me when i put my crap eddie's on.. it was a bitch to remove w/o taking the head off.. what i did was i drilled out the center of the bolt and used an EZ out... well this didnt work and the hardned steel EZ out broke inside that hole.. so then i had to drill out the EZ out (witch was extremely hard to do) and then i decided to drill out the rest of the bolt.. with a size a little bit smaller then the original bolt .. then i used a tab and retapped the threads.. this task takes alot of time skill and peteince or youll find yourself with a jacked up bolt hole that useless.. LAST ditch effort you could always drill out the hole to a larger size and HELI coil it but this is a cheep quick fix and usually doesnt last long.. and they are iron heads.. a bitch to drill into anyway.. if you dont think you can handle this.. id take it to a REALLY good shop or a REALLY good meachine shop and ask them what they think.. or just deal with the exhaust leak... if/when you get it fixed and you crank up that motor youll know for a fact the difference and then youll know what a leak sounds like..

USUALLY a leak is just a loud -****- -****- sound at a very rapid rate.. but since the seal isnt 100% there is prolly multiple cylinders leaking and it just sounds noisy as hell..

good lucka nd post back with any questions

also forogt 2 things.. one thing is that if you do do this job use plenty of penatrating oil .. like PB Blaster. to try and break up the ceased bolt.. if you can .. dont drive the truck for a day or two and pull that header off.. and spend the day or two spraying that bolt to ..constantly keeping it wet .. another is you can TRY to use heat to expand the bolt hold enough .. i highly doubt this will work .. mainly b/c iron doesnt like to expand as much as regular steel or alum does when heat is applied,, this is why they use iron for heads and blocks.. also normal run of the mill propane and MAPP gas blow torches sold in a hardware store wouldnt produce enough localized heat to heat up that one spot.. the rest of that head and block will take that heat away.. an oxy acetylene torch would prolly do the trick.. if it can be done.. but i dont recomend htis..mainly if you do manage to heat that one spot up enough to turn that bolt out.. your running the risk of warping the deck surface and you can start blowing head gaskets and thats just a fun day ...

just throing ideas at ya .. so you can judge if you can do the job yourself.. and you will be well armed with some know-how if you choose to take it to a shop or someone to have it worked on or looked at... lets see what some other guys have got to say

 

I would have to agree with shott on this one, heat isn't worth the risk. Working in a shop I have seen this alot and I would reccomend trying the easy out and then moving on to drilling the bolt out and cleaning up the hole afterword. PATIENCE, can't stress it enough, I did this when I but headers on a Blazer I had a while back, just be careful and you *shouldn't* have too much trouble, good luck.