Well, while I was removing my exhaust manifolds to replace the gaskets, I had 1 stud that I couldn't remove, of coarse. So I cut the nut off to remove the manifold, to have better access to it. I heated it, warped it with a hammer, swore at it, nothing worked. So I have to drill it and easy out the stud. While drilling it out, I continuiously kept checking to make sure I didn't go to deep, but I found out the hard way that the rear bolt on the #3 cylinder isn't that deep. Yup, drilled right into the water jacket. So.... here's my question. Without tearing the motor down, and replacing the holy head, does anyone have a sure fire way to repair my mishap? Someone told me to J.B.Weld the bolt and put it back together. Any thoughts or help would greatly be appreciated.

 

it's worth a try.Did you get the entire broken stud out,leaving the threads intact?If so there's better chance of a sure fix...if not I'd make some future plans to remove the head.The question I have in mind is how much good metal do you have left to transfer heat,and is the hole still round and tight.Are you saying you have Holly aluminum heads?Holly does'nt make cylinder heads,as far as I know... I'm fuzzy on the entire picture you have,but a repair here is likely to be always nagging at you with a big ?

 

Well after a little research, here's what I've come up with. In lesser quality vehicles, (Chrysler and GM) the exhaust manifold bolts are open to the water jackets. When replacing the bolts, all that is required is good threads and a dab of "red" (high temp) RTV sealant.This is also the case for using helicoils too. Most cooling system run 9 - 12 p.s.i., so pressure isn't a real factor. To check the repair, all you have to do is pressurize the cooling system to the vehicle specs and if it holds you're golden. So after finding this out, it kinda takes the worry away. Thanks for the replies.

 

Really not all that uncommon to have water pump bolts , timing covers ect. that extend into the water jacket. I'd just make sure you have a shouldered stud, seal the stud with a sealer or a good thread locker and 'bottom out' the shoulder of the stud into the threads. The pinch and sealer will make a good seal. It won't leak...