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Crossover problems, tips?

G

guybb3

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Location
Tewksbury Mass.
Anybody have any tips on changing the exhaust crossover in the rust belt of the Northeast? I have the new stainless steel one already. I'm just afraid of breaking every bolt in sight.
 
Flame wrench,,,, heat those nuts RED HOT!!!! and spin the nutz off with an Impact wrench,,, It will either break the stud,, or spin right off,, leaving you with a crusty remnant of a stud to bolt that new piece too. So,, then you heat the piss out of the exhaust manifold and get the remaining stud out, and put in new ones.

Or Take it to Tuffy!! and pay some tool do get dirty for ya.

I'm in mid Michigan,, and have changed my fair share of rusty exhaust components in the past 20 years of working on cars.

Thats one job that I am willing to pay someone to do for me,, or trade labor for anyway!

Good Luck!
 
Advice I got, after the fact, was to soak with PB Blaster and heat and cold cycle the thing a few times with more PB blaster between cycles. Heat it up like Pruitxx said, and use an impact wrench. Quick torque application to break the bolts free rather than slow twisting force that will just sheer them off. Don't ask how I know as I'm also a proud owner of a helix kit for just such an application (and have a good set of drill bits just in case). Thankfully it was only one and the kit worked as advertised...about time something besides what I buy from Heath did.
 
The advice I got, and worked for me last spring, was to heat the manifold to red hot. I didn't use an impact but I didn't snap anything off either. Just extensions, a breaker bar and a piece of pipe worked for me.

Best advice I got was to have a hose handy during the heating process. You would be amazed how little flame it takes to light fuel, oil and grease soaked split loom on fire :eek: (Also, it is a good idea to have the hose turned on before you start with the torch - do not ask me how I know this....):h)

All in all, this was the least pleasant thing I have ever done on the tahoe. Biggest pain was getting the new one piece unit on. I ended up hogging out the holes on the new flanges a LOT. I should have just gone wild on them to begin with but ended up back and forth many, many times until I could get that last bolt in. Frankly, I wished I had bought a 2 piece unit....
 
My advice...

Rule # 1... dont do this project when your wife needs her vehicle in the next few hours.... Karma will guarantee you break something (ask me how I know)

I agree with the PB blaster soaking... for at least a week. Might even want to do this right before and shortly after you drive (taking advantage of the heat cycle from the engine).

When you go to put the new pipe in, I would suggest replacing the factory bolts with studs/nuts. It will be MUCH easier to get the flanges over the studs and put nuts on, than it will be to put the bolts through the flanges and make them line up.

I will say I am absolutely amazed a the difference the crossover alone made in how it runs. I put my 4" exhaust on about 1.5 years ago, and just finally got around to doing the cross over. Engine sounds considerably smoother now, the turbo is actually audible inside the cab now, and it spools noticeably quicker.

Wish I had the $$ to do one on the project Burb as I put its new donor engine in.
 
I just did take a 92 crossover off the other day,the sucker had been on there since new.
most bolts where rusted thin on the shank,I was afraid on breaking every one of them.
Using the torch resulted only in putting the truck on fire the moment i aimed it on a bolt.
I used a small brazing tip for it. That was a close call.
The fire wall insulation proved to be to close to the manifolds and very flamable,so shield it with tin if you wanna try. Keep a pail of water handy,I aint kidding here.
i had good result with continued soaking and hammering the piss out of every bolt using a 3/4" rod and BFH after wich all but one came loose. The last one broke off but left a 1/2 stump.It was the only one I could access with the torch,after heating both bolt and manifold red hot i used a stud remover to get that one out
 
A torch is a absolute must. The next one I try to do in the truck I'm going to just take the manifolds out of the truck to remove the bolts. It's much quicker imo. I use all stainless bolts when putting the new pipes on. anti-seize compound is your friend.
 
bk95td said:
A torch is a absolute must. The next one I try to do in the truck I'm going to just take the manifolds out of the truck to remove the bolts. It's much quicker imo. I use all stainless bolts when putting the new pipes on. anti-seize compound is your friend.
Click to expand...
I aint sure if it would save time,if the crossover bolts are seized in,the manifold bolts aint far behind,on my 98 i broke the heads off some and others had no decent hex left to put a socket on,but the crossover bolts came out easy.

Only prob with stainless bolts is the hex is 17 mm,little room for the socket.
an allen hex bolt would work fine.

On an other note,how would you remove the manifolds without removing the crossover first?
 
bison said:
On an other note,how would you remove the manifolds without removing the crossover first?
Click to expand...

Gotta luv a Zip saw!

On edit: When you do get it out, you may think about just using through-bolts/nuts. The only downside is that manifold flange (in some cases) doesn't leave much room to allow the bolt head (or nut, depending on which way you go) to lay flat enough to get the actual bolt straight and square through the hole.

Which means, you have to grind away some of the manifold. Not hard to do, but of course it's much easier to do with the manifold off. I did this while I had my manifolds off - waiting for the new engine.

The big plus side to this is that once you have it done, crossover removal is MUCH easier. If the bolt or nut gets all rusted up, you can simply cut/snap it off and put a new one in.
 
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On my 94 all the bolts were like toothpicks, I just snapped them all and drilled the holes on the manifolds and used bolts. Wasnt as hard as I thought it would be
 
Ditto on Bisons story re setting the truck on fire .Went thru that gut wrenching experience when my son & I ( mostlly him) did the cross over on my truck.Sure is no flame retardent in that fire wall insulation . As he says , keep a pail of water handy or a garden hose.
 
Thanks for all the advice, we have to do the 92 soon, cooler and lines and a crossover. have been putting some PB on every once in a while, hope it goes well.
 
Definitely agree with all the comments on using a torch to break loose rusted exhaust fasteners. I've gotten to where I use a torch pro-actively as the time to fix/drill out, etc., one messed up fastener always takes more time than using the torch/heat expansion in the first place.

I replace exh manifold crossover studs w/ stock type new studs. Then use anti-seize & stainless steel nuts. They won't corrode together & you avoid loosing as much tensile strength as with common stainless steel bolts/studs.

ARP makes some nice stainless exhaust studs in their "300" stainless alloy that retains good strength, but they're rather pricey.
 
When we did the Tahoe, it was SUCH a pain. All but 1 of the bolts just snapped off, and we had to drill and then ended up using a welding torch to melt what was left of the bolts out of the manifold. I actually hired this out and had Midas do it. It took them a couple of days, but they did it all for $100. They replaced with through bolts and nuts. They are on the small side, but at least I can cut them off if ever I need to. Zero leaks, and truck runs better, so its all good.

For the 'burb, I've been sitting on the new crossover for over a year. I have heard of the 'candle trick', which is to heat the joint red-hot, and apply a beeswax candle to the joint, so that the heat will melt and wick the wax into the threads. Sounds good, anyway.

Another trick I've heard of is to get/rent a induction nut heater, which uses magnetic energy to head the manifold red hot (without using a flame) and then hit the bolt with an impact wrench when it is all heated up.

Good luck! I'm still too chicken to do the 'burb.

-Rob :)
 
That does look very slick.

And I can personally vouch for the benefits of heating the nut quickly w/ limited transfer to the bolt. On the farm, we have a very old accessory, that came w/ some Forney welders, called a carbon arc torch. It basically allows you to clamp the 2 carbon electrodes onto a nut w/ a dead short across the nut. This heats the nut to glowing almost instantly w/ limited heat tranfer in the bolt if everything is rusty.

Did anybody's stock setup have a spring loaded tension btwn the nut & exh flanges? My truck makes noticeably more exhaust exp/contraction "tinking" noises than with the stock exhaust. I've seen other trucks with the spring tension on exh flanges and wonder if that allows a bit of give as things heat/cool/move.
 
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