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David 70 · 03-31-2022, 10:03 AM

Having on a lot of old tractors with highly rusted bolts and nuts I found the easiest way was to heat them up red hot and maybe a little more and douse them with cold water and try to turn them right away. Of course don't get real agressive with it. If it doesn't come loose, repeat until it does.

yeloduster · 03-31-2022, 10:42 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by David 70

Having on a lot of old tractors with highly rusted bolts and nuts I found the easiest way was to heat them up red hot and maybe a little more and douse them with cold water and try to turn them right away. Of course don't get real agressive with it. If it doesn't come loose, repeat until it does.

Thanks David. That sounds like a good idea. Maybe a squirt bottle with water. The nut is pretty small (8mm x 1.25). I think I will heat until it glows, squirt it with water and try to work it loose. Rinse and repeat if necessary.

Your idea makes it less likely I will burn myself.

yeloduster · 03-31-2022, 10:45 AM

The weather appears to be a nice day followed by a not so nice day and repeat for the next several days. We have plans that preclude working on the MH until the middle of April. So until then...

CamJam1 · 04-02-2022, 06:28 AM

I just successfully removed four exhaust flange nuts from one of my old project cars without breaking any of the studs. What worked for me was Deep Creep penetrating oil, followed by heat from a propane torch and then a spray freeze in a can. I alternated between the three for a while giving the penetrating oil time to soak in each time, then used an impact wrench to finish the job. I used the freeze can as the final step before the impact wrench thinking it would work best to have the threads contracted as much as possible.

Following this thread and will be interested to hear how it all works out for you. We're about to start a 6-8 week trip to Oregon, so I'll be following from the road.

yeloduster · 04-16-2022, 07:07 AM

The DW and I rented a condo right across the street from the old US Mint in New Orleans. This is in walking distance to the French Quarter and the great clubs on Frenchman street such as the Spotted Cat.

We had good friends who live in Sherman, TX. Sherman is a NE suburb of Dallas. We arrived at their home in the evening of Wednesday, Apr 6 with the intent on spending Wednesday evening and Thursday with them and then continuing on to New Orleans on Friday the 8th.

About midnight I started having severe abdominal pain. By ~4:00 AM I couldn't tolerate the pain any more and had my DW drive me to the Texoma Medical Center in Denison.

Long story short....I was experiencing a severe gall bladder attack. The Docs at the medical center performed a multitude of tests confirming the diagnosis and declared I needed surgery. They then handed me a visit summary and said goodbye. You're not doing surgery I asked? Nope, not here Mr. Colorado! Go Home!

I was released from the Emergency room about 11 AM. We decided to stay in Sherman for the rest of the day and night to see if I could make the trip home. The next morning we decided to head back to Colorado Springs. I was in too much pain to drive and was taking pain meds so the DW had the chore for ALL of it. Our plan was to stop in Amarillo for the night.

While refueling in Amarillo the DW says, "#%@# this! We're goin' home." And we did! My little Iron Maiden drove non stop 750 miles to get me home! Within 2 hours of arriving in Colorado Springs I was back at the Emergency Room.

I had surgery about noon on Monday, April 11. Recovery from this surgery is not instant. I don't know when I will be healthy enough to work on the MH again.

I'll let you know!

exrench · 04-16-2022, 07:54 AM

Kudos to your Iron Maiden and get well wishes from my end. That was a brutal experience to be put through.

CamJam1 · 04-16-2022, 08:09 AM

Geez, glad you're OK, YD! I take it this was in a car and not the moho? 750 miles in a coach in one day would probably kill me, lol.

yeloduster · 04-16-2022, 08:18 AM

Thanks Cam and exrench!

We were in an Audi A6. She would not drive the MH!

yeloduster · 06-07-2022, 08:00 AM

Or 'Can gall stones kill you?" Surprisingly the answer is YES. So there I was yelling, "Saint Peter don't you call me 'cause I can't go, I owe my soul" (Merle Travis 1946) to my wife, my kids, my G'kids, my siblings, my cousins and friends! And, I have headers to put on my motorhome!

It was bad, very very bad. After I my last post I re-entered the hospital with a large abscess in my abdomen. I won't go into gory details but it was nip and tuck for a while. When the Iron Maiden and I went in to see the Doc post-op his first words were "You're looking pretty good for a man who was on death's door five weeks ago!" It turns out that the Iron Maiden isn't made of Iron for all things! That statement brought tears!

But. I'm Back!

Now down to business. It seems the universe is making it difficult to get to my header project. On Saturday I jacked the MH in preparation of doing the header job. It is setting on heavy duty jack stands for safety.

We woke Sunday to find no hot water in the S&B. I spent all day fixing that. I spent Monday morning mowing and doing other S&B projects. Monday afternoon I removed the front wheels and the spark plug cooling tubes and the spark plug wires. See the pics. The first picture shows the view with the front tire removed. The second is of the left side with cooling tube removed and the spark plug wires disconnected and positioned out of the way. Access to all the manifold bolts is pretty good.

Thorley instructions say to remove the spark plugs. I suppose that is to keep from breaking them. I gonna leave 'em to make sure nothing falls into the cylinder. I'll replace broken spark plugs if I have to.

I then quit for the day. I'm doin' OK but stamina hasn't full returned.

sploke · 06-07-2022, 08:14 AM

Yikes! Glad to hear you pulled through all that and are back wrenching. Hopeful for a speedy, full recovery!

yeloduster · 06-07-2022, 02:59 PM

Thanks for the kind words Matt.

I got back to it about 10 AM this morning.

I took off the down pipe and removed the oxygen sensor. My intent was to reuse the oxygen sensors, however removing the sensor stripped the threads on the sensor. See the first picture. I ordered 2 new O2 sensors from Amazon. Supposed to be here tomorrow.

I decided to work on the right side first. Because it has the EGR fitting on my particular model and the oil dipstick tube on the right side it was more tedious than the left. Do the hard part first!

Because I didn't care if I twisted off the studs on the EGR fitting I just stuck a wrench on there and the 2 nuts came right off! I then removed oil dipstick tube. It is retained by one of the manifild nuts (a double nut affair) and a bracket that is attached to the alternator bracket. The tube is 2 pieces. The top tube pulls right out and it is easy to move it far enough to be out of the way. The bottom half is inserted into the block right above the pan. A good hard yank gets it out.

Sooooo! Now can I get the nuts off the manifold studs!? The first thing is to remove the factory heat shield. See picture 2. I had to grind a 1/2 wrench head a little thinner so I could get in on the nut behind the head shield. The shield came off will little problem. Wow! The first nut came right off! No heat and not very much effort. However, one of the studs is actually a bolt! I had to heat it to get it to break free. 6 of the studs came out of the head. Not such a bad thing. I've order new studs. I will try to remove the other stud tomorrow.

The manifold is hanging by just one stud now. See picture 3.

It started raining. I will return to work on it tomorrow

Arch Hoagland · 06-07-2022, 04:06 PM

If I had my life to do over I would have had Thorley headers installed the day I bought my coach.

I've had several header problems over the past 17 years. A couple times it was covered by the warranty so I didn't have Thorley's installed.

I think you are making a good decision by installing them.

yeloduster · 06-08-2022, 07:41 PM

I have both manifolds removed. On the right side most of the studs came out of the head with the nut still attached. I didn't break any! On the down side I have no easy way to remove the nuts from the studs so I will probably replace them. I will make an effort tomorrow to salvage the studs.

On the left side the nuts came off leaving the studs in the head. I'm going to reuse those studs.

See picture 1. Here is the primary reason a 8.1L GM engine can't make a lot of horsepower without changing heads. The exhaust ports are TINY. They can't flow enough to make good power. If you want to make 500+ horses with this engine you need different heads!

Note on picture 1 the carbon buildup around the port. The stock exhaust manifold gasket is bigger than the port and carbon builds up in that space.

Picture 2 is after I have used coarse emery cloth to remove the carbon.

Tomorrow it goes back together!

yeloduster · 06-11-2022, 07:29 PM

I got it all together again. I can't detect any leaks. At idle the sound meter application on my phone says 70db just like before. But the sound has changed. From a low tenor it has changed to a medium baritone.

On a short test drive the sound level in the MH is similar to what it was with the stock exhaust. When in OD you can't hear it at all. Heavy throttle produces a low but not unpleasant rumble. That too is not very noticeable. Engine fan almost drowns it out.

I will give particulars about the install after we return from our first trip of the year. YAHOO! And a trip report.