sheared bolt...need advice

[bcleaver]

Rough night working on the car last night. I was trying to remove the exhaust so I can drop the rear end out of the car to replace the subframe bushings and I sheared two of the four bolts where the exhaust connects to the headers. They were completely rusted onto the bolt from the header. Anyone know if I can drill those out and put in new bolts or have any recommendations?

Am I going to have to buy new headers? Any help would be appreciated. Thanks guys

[billschusteriv]

Found the following picture of stock e46 exhaust headers... so I apologize if this isn't what you have...



Did you shear the head of the bolt? The bolt itself?

Not sure where the shearing was so I'm not 100%, but you should be able to drill out the bolts or use an ez-out/bolt extractor kit.

I'd also recommend soaking all accessible surfaces of the bolt and points where the bolt contacts the exhaust pipe flange with penetrating fluid. Let it soak for a while (half hour to an hour)... then come back and soak it again before trying to break it loose.

[bcleaver]

That's looks like what I have. In the bottom of that picture you can see two 'bolts', more like studs attached to the post cat side of the header (left side of the image). I broke the bolts about halfway. Both on the same header. I soaked the bolts several times with PB blaster over 1.5 days and still couldn't get it to budge (without breaking).

So now I still have the headers attached to the car but one only has half a bolt, not long enough to thread a nut on.

[billschusteriv]

If you have access to a die set - you could try threading the remainder of that bolt to thread a nut onto it....

[billschusteriv]

Others have tried similar endeavors... and ultimately recommend taking to an exhaust shop to have it removed for $20 or so.

http://www.m3forum.net/m3forum/showthread.php?t=287639

Apparently these bolts are press fit and a real bear to take out without a good torch.

[bcleaver]

Very useful thread. Thank you for passing along. To the exhaust shop.

Looks like I may be expediting my custom exhaust since there's no point in taking it to a shop and not having them make me a new leightweight one.