How to remove a broken exhaust manifold stud
I recently had the distinct pleasure of needing to remove a broken exhaust manifold stud from an aluminum cylinder head on my drag racing car, even when using a torque wrench graduated in inch/lbs. As you may well know, there are only 3 types of people in this world. Ones that have not yet broken a stud, those that have already, and those that never will.
Well, congratulations are in order, because I graduated from class 1 into class 2 in a flurry of expletives. I had just completed a porting job on my exhaust manifold, and in the process of bolting it back up, the last stud (always) decided to break on me. Now, this isn’t one of those “easy break” deals, either. The remainder of the stud was recessed with respect to the plane of the head. So, it is with much reluctance, I now had a research project on my hands.
After searching the web for a while, the conclusion I came to is that the “easy way” is to take it to a machine shop. Well, that just isn’t good enough for me. I figured the machine shop might only charge $40 or $60 bucks for it, but then there are all the gaskets to buy and the downtime to deal with and on and on. There has to be a better way.
Well, there is. And I documented it for all of my readers. Here it is.. enjoy!
