horst

Today, after adjusting the exhaust valves, lying under my car and putting the ehaust back together, I noticed that one of my heater boxed had a bit of rust- I stuck the tip of my pocketknife into it, and it went through! Not a very large area, but I am now thinking of replacing the heat exchangers. My question is two-fold: 1. How difficult is this without taking the engine out? It looks as though the main problems would be the rusted nuts on the exhaust studs. Am I overlooking something? 2. Any suggestions as to where the most reasonable place is here in the USA to get new boxes? SS would be nice, but not essential.

BTW, I have a theory- that under the engine gover that the had for the years before I owned it had a sodden, disintigrating foam sound deadening pad. I think that that was a nice repository for water which it absorbed, and lay there. I think that that may have promoted rust. Thoughts?

Kevin

Horst;

It is veRy easy. Remove your 2 mufflers and undo the 12 nuts and drop the heat exchangers down as one unit. If you need a awesome replacement set I have a low mileage set of my 91 and 93 RSA. I converted over to the stainless 993 exhaust. Water and road salts would eat away any metal in a trapped condition. With corrosion present you must soak all the nuts overnight. Good luck.

Jeff Curtis

Hey Horst! Another "trick" that worked for me when I removed mine was to heat them up with a blowtorch. Sometimes liquid wrench or Rostoff (Wurth) doesn't work so well on those nuts that are often 1400 degrees.

You can get a blowtorch in there at an angle for most of the nuts, just keep the tip of the flame on the nut...no need to get the nut or the stud GLOWING, just get it hot and try and break it loose, if it doesn't break loose, heat it up another minute or two and try again.

horst

Jeff- I think you are deliberately setting me up. I stick a torch in there, and ruin the head seal or burn the place down. Hmmm mabey not such a bad idea. I DO have insurance!

KEVIN- semd me your e-mail address. I want to know more about your take-offs. That might be a cost-effective way to go!

Michael Delaney

Horst, If you are needing a good penetrating oil I recently used a product called Kroil. It is heads above anything else I have used. It's hard to find and I don't know anything about your area. Would be worth calling around to find some if you need it. Good Luck, Roy

Jeff Curtis

Actually, Horst, I am not setting you up...I have done this, a couple of times.

First of all - you have no head seals on an '89, unless it's been fixed by a previous warranty claim. Second, if you concentrate your flame properly...there shouldn't be enough heat conducted through the cylinder head to damage anything...you should only have the stud and nut glowing, at the most.