Preaching to the chior brother. I basically spent a week trying to get my pipes on, because I did exactly that; rounded off a nut.

 

Bump' to keep keep track for my installation purposes. thanks for the thread ExWRXDriver.

 

did you use penetrating oil? if not, next time get some non flammible P. oil. if that doesnt work, you should try a propane torch. heat that bad boy up real good, then hit it with the impact gun. or... better yet, get some new hardware, and use a sawzall to get the old ones off!

 

Long story.

First, I'm a novice at this kind of thing. And I'm acquiring tools as well.

On a Tuesday I went to an autoparts store to get some exhaust gaskets; while I was there I picked up a 1/2" drive to 3/8" drive adapter, 3 10" 3/8" drive extensions, a 3/8" drive swivel adapter, a deep 14mm socket, some Liquid Wrench, and a 24" 1/2" drive breaker bar.

When I got home, I got the car on jack stands, and let it cool. I used the extensions to break loose one bolt on the passenger cat. That bolt was just a test; it came lose without too much effort. Daylight was expiring, so I then got underneath the car and sprayed the crap out of all the bolts. I mean the bolts were just swimming in liquid wrench.

The next day I got a ride from work, picked up some new gaskets for the exhaust manifolds, and headed home. The first 30 minutes were easy; broke lose the 2 bolts on the exhaust, for both cats. Then started working on the exhaust manifold bolts. Of the 5 remaining bolts, I got three without a problem. One of the bolts, on the passenger side, I was going through the engine compartment when I broke one of my 10" extensions. One of the other extensions became warped. These were purchased at Advance, so no Craftsman warranty there. I ended up using my foot on a box-end wrench to break that bolt lose.

Then there was one last nut; a nud on the stud on the passenger side cat. I spent over two hours on that bolt. I went out and bought a slightly longer 14mm box-end wrench for more leverage, and a rubber mallet. The only thing I succeeded in doing was rounding off the nut.

It got dark out, so I decided to reattempt it the next night. Thursday night, I tried some more, and I just totally fubarred the nut. I put the exhaust back together and got the car off the jackstands. The next morning(Friday), I took the car to an exhaust shop. After 2 hours, the exhaust shop gave up. I paid the guy for his labor, and went home.

I talked to a guy over the weekend that is a local welder. The next wednesday I dropped the car off at lunch. He welded a new nut onto the old nut and backed it out. He said the threads on the stud were all screwed up; not cross-threaded, rather there were two vertical lines stretching the length of the stud crossing the threads. He backed out the stud, rethreaded it, and put it back in with a new nut. He charged me $50.

I got the car home, and it took me about an hour to get everything out, then put back in.

I didn't have the experience at the time to try different things; things like heat-cycling the system or dremmeling the nut off the stud. It was expensive, but it's experience I didn't have previously.

 

you can use a bolt extractor on rounded off nuts, works like a charm. The other thing is get a good set of sockets, they really do make a difference. my friend once tried to remove a frozen nut with a cheap set of scokets and managed to round off the corners. the Craftsman 6pt socket also counldn't grab the nut. I busted out a Snap-on 6pt socket and it took it right off, even though it was a rounded off nut. The better sockets grab on the sides not the corners so rounding will not be an issue. If you look at a good socket the corners are not a sharp point, they are semi-circular and do not actually touch the nut. One last thing use 6pt only, 12pt will round off a stuck nut.

 

The problem with this particular nut was that a socket would NOT grab it. The nut was all the way at the base of the stud, meaning the stud was sticking out the other end, which in turn means that I needed a deep socket to go over the nut. However, the stud was angled in such a way that the housing of the cat got in the way; to the point that the socket would not mate with the nut. The socket would only go over one side of the nut.

So a socket was just not going to do the job.

 

oh, in that case you should use a 6pt closed end wrench. an open end or 12pt. is asking to get it rounded off.

 

Trey (and others) it wouldn't have mattered even if you didn't round off the nut. It's clear that whoever reinstalled the nuts over torqued and/or crossthreaded them. I doubt even a 300 lb/ft impact wrench would have helped. Nut/bolt extractors work like a charm, but if the nut is cross-threaded or on with excessive torque, you're screwed. Torches rarely help either. Been there, done that. The best option is either weld on a nut or break out the sawsall.

 

A nice air chisel will split open a nut or cut clear through a bolt in seconds. They're kinda fun to use because they'll cut through just about anything.

When I had to remove my Stillen exhaust, the bent U bolt wasn't going to come off with any amount of torue. The air chisel made a potentially difficult job easy.

 

Hey Hydrazine,

When you took off the Stillen, what exhaust did you go with?

Also, do you believe that the claims I hear that the Stillen exhaust is HEAVIER than stock true?

That has to be impossible, its all stainless steel.....

 

well stainless steel does weigh more then plain steel.

 

Diamond,

Yes, the Stillen is heavier.
1) Stainless is denser than carbon steel
2) Larger diameter pipes
3) Dual pipes

The gains are good though.


The only reason I removed the Stillen was for experimental purposes. I needed to hack up a crummy single exhaust (fart can) so I could have a single exhaust stream to take A/F measurements with.

I didn't want to hack the Stillen.

 

Not to hyjack the thread, but in saying that, I would guess that ALL true dual exhausts are heavier than stock then, huh? Except for the titanium exhausts that cost as much as a black market kidney then.....

 

I took off the eBay pipes and put on generic $150 pipes from Intensepower's website. The fitment was horrible, almost worse than ebay's. After I got the test pipes torqued to the manifold I had to pull as hard as I could on the y-pipe to get the bolt through the ypipe-testpipe flanges, but once it was through it seemed to screw together ok. It would have been impossible if the stock y-pipe didn't have the flexible sections. The sound? Much better than ebay test pipes, very little rasp and only a slight hissing noise on deceleration. It sounds wicked. Still not perfect, but my Injen true dual exhaust should be coming tomorrow so I will be able to put that on next weekend. Since it's true dual the fitment to the test pipes shouldn't be as much of an issue as stock. I'll update next weekend.