I took my 97 Expo. to the local exhaust this morning. The exhaust man said that he has a lot of this in his shop. He said that "cannot believe that there has not be a recall on them" any one heard of an up coming recall. Has anyone tried this job in there backyard. Any tips?

 

I had one broken off below the surface of the head. Must have been like that for awhile as it was pretty corroded. When I put my headers on, I had that one, plus another that broke off flush with the top of the manifold flange. After pulling the manifold, I was able to get on the one stud no problem, but the one that was busted in the head was a real pisser. Tried an EZ out in it, which promptly snapped off...Well, they should change the name of those things for sure. Went thru $40 of cobalt drill bits that did not touch the hardened EZ out. Tried drilling the stud around the EZ, but every time the bit touched the EZ, it snapped...Finally, as a last resort to pulling the head and going to the machine shop with it, I tried a tungsten carbide cutter bit for the Dremel. Never thought it was gonna work, but it ate right thru the EZ out! Drilled out the rest of the stud and tapped the head. All good!

AMMOEATER

 

hey i know what you are talking about... the bolts/studs on the exhaust manifold to the y-pipe have rusted in half. Right? i have 97 f150 4.6L that did the same thing. i dropped the exhaust, this included tranny crossmember and other misc. b.s., ground the studs flat to the manifold and drilled them out. i was able to get enough room to work/drill by getting the y-pipe out of the way. i then put 5/16 grade 8 bolts with locknuts and everything was tight again...however, i now have a leaking gasket on the pass. side manifold that i have yet to tackle. i keep reading the posts on it here and am reluctant to attempt broken studs in aluminum heads. needless to say i am pissed!! ford knows this is a problem, take a look at the size of bolts/studs they put this stuff together with.