exhaust

[The Doctor]

Help anyone please.  My exhaust fell off, so had to replace it (see Richard's topic below).  No problem, but the small elbow that holds the exhaust to the engine (the manifold?) came loose and now refuses to tighten.  A local yokel told me that once they are disturbed, they never tighten again, so either fit oversized bolts or buy a new clamp. As this piece would be very expensive, is it possible to either (a) use oversize or (b) loctite the original bolt and hope it doesn't rattle loose?
thanks everyone.
Graham

[hudsonhenry]

Graham

I think I understand what your talking about, is it the bolt that holds the elbow to the head that now turns with little or no effect?

If so then you may have shagged the thread in the alloy head, I am not sure wether you can drill and re-tap the hole to take a bigger bolt, the proper way to do this is to fit a helicoil (found this on the web, may help explaine the method  http://www.mantaclub.org/forum/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=1858  )  

Is it the elbow closest to the front or the back of the car, both would be easier with the head off, but if it is the one closest to the front I don't think you will have much room to work so it may have to come off.

I think the standard engine comes with bolts to hold the elbow on, I have found it better to fit studs and fix on with nuts, at one time I had a collection of 500 and 126 heads (and one or two blocks) that all either had the threads stripped or had snapped bolts stuck in them, you have to be very gental with steel bolts in alloy heads and blocks

[paul harbinson.]

Hello Graham,ahhh you have discovered the achelles heel of the air cooled engine.If its the outer manifold you can fix it in place,if its the manifold at the bulkhead it's a head off job.I've had to do this a few times.You need to buy a helli coil set (motor factors should sell them).Drill out the worn threads(follow instructions with set it will tell you what size of drills to use etc),then "tap" out new threads,fit helli coils.Re-assemble and forget about it cause it won't do it again. Hope this helps.If you need any other help send me a PM and i'll send you my phone numbers.

[hudsonhenry]

Graham

How did you get on? Was it the thread?

Nigel