The Forgotten On

If you are concerned about the intake flanges being flat just have a local machine shop pass them over their large belt sander they use for heads and exhaust manifolds.

It would be pretty evident very quickly if your manifold parts weren't flat.

I also second using soda blasting. It cleaned up my engine's internals very nicely and they look like new, it even removed thick baked on carbon I thought would never come off.

Best part is it's water soluble so you won't have to worry about any getting ingested in the engine after a trip to the parts washer.

bureau13

I do have access to a friend's soda blaster, so that's what I'll try.

bureau13

Well I'm having the (apparently) very common issue of being unable to get two of the water bridge bolts out. I'm not having any coolant leaks from that area, so the lazy devil on one shoulder is suggesting I simply leave it be...however I have one of Greg Brown's oil filler baffles, and I think I need to have the water bridge off to put it in, right? Plus, if I don't change the seals it will definitely start leaking as soon as I put it all back together...

I've tried several shots of PB Blaster and hitting them with a hammer, and I've tried my fairly low-power impact driver...that's what got the other two loosened fairly easily. I have NOT tried an actual wrench, or my big impact wrench, because I absolutely do NOT want to have to drill those out, put a timesert in, or any of that stuff. I had to do that with a water pump bolt, and I'd just as soon avoid that this go-round.

Any thoughts? What is safer, the big impact wrench or a regular wrench? Or should I listen to the lazy devil and leave the baffle for another day?

skpyle

STRIKEMASTER

Get some "dry Ice' pellets. use heat and cold to break the bolt loose. Heating the water bridge doesn't work very well because aluminium is too good heat a conductor, So you heat the water bridge and then hold a 'dry ice' pellet to the head of the bolt to make it shrink down..several heat/cold cycles and it should come loose. Just don't try to turn the bolt while it's cold....I used this trick to get a hard fuel line off ( minus the heat part) . Chilled down the 'Male' end a few times and it came right apart...YMMV

bureau13

It sounds like maybe I'm just too impatient, and it's too early to bring out the Big Guns. More repetition! I will do that.

The dry ice pellets sound interesting. I'll see if I can find them around here...

bureau13

UPDATE: One of the stuck bolts has been loosened. One to go...

I have been going back and forth in my head as to whether I wanted to bother with the cam covers this time around. From what I can tell, I wouldn't have to redo most of what I've done, if I leave them for another day. Pulling off the side tanks from the intake should give me access to get them out, without pulling all of the intake. Correct me if I'm wrong. I have no indication that there are problems there, and I REALLY did not want to deal with stuck S3 bolts....and in fact, while cleaning the covers in place, I noticed that one of those bolts was loose. In fact, it's just sitting there, already snapped off right below the surface. (*sigh*)

These are allen-head bolts...I assume two-piece. I know there was a change midway through '86 but I'm not sure what exactly changed...they're all two-piece prior to '87, right? Being an '86.5, one might assume I have the latest stuff from '86 however I have the old style bracket that holds the clamshell and cylindrical connector for the front ABS and pad wear sensor wires, so you never know...

zekgb

The two piece bolts are hex head, you have the updated (unobtanium for the S3) single piece bolts. And yes, you can do the cam covers at any time.

bureau13

Ahh, OK...so they are one-piece, just not available. I've read you can use the S4 bolts with some modifications to washers or something. But I do think I will save this for another day.

bureau13

OK, I finally gave up on the not-very-manly Riyobi impact driver, and pulled out the big dog (those of you with real tools will probably laugh, but it's significantly bigger and meaner-looking than that Riyobi) impact wrench. It literally took one brief trigger squeeze to break loose the last water bridge bolt. That probably says more about the first one I used than anything else.

So, the bolts don't actually look too bad, but I think it's in my best interests to replace them, and the probably-original coolant hoses as well, so I fired off an email to Roger. In the meantime, I had a question: When I changed my water pump, there was a recommendation to use some sort of PTFE thread sealant on those bolts, to prevent corrosion from coolant weeping up the threads past the gasket. I haven't seen anyone mention that for the water pump bolts, but it seems like a good idea. Any thoughts on this?

FredR

Did you mean the water bridge bolts?

Congrats on getting the bolts out- saving my 3/4 drive pneumatic gun for that task one of these days!

bureau13

Oops, yes, thanks Fred...I meant water bridge bolts! I did that on the water pump bolts, and I'm wondering if it would also be a good idea here on the water bridge bolts.

Mrmerlin

yes a good idea to put PTFE sealant on the water bridge bolts

bureau13

OK, good. It made sense to me, but I wanted one of the experts to weigh in in case I was missing a compelling reason not to do so....thanks!

Kevin in Atlanta

I use PTFE sealant on any bolt that might come in contact with coolant.