I just finished clearing up noise from the wheels of my ea81, and I am now on to the next task-- the heinous exhaust noise.

 

I have already found the source of the issue, the stud that holds the pipe to the manifold has come out, and taken the threads with it. So the hole on my manifold is stripped out, and I don't know what to do about it.

 

I've called around to see if anyone would tap it out for me, but nobody wants to do that with the aluminium- and I'm not even sure if thats what I want to do.

 

What would you guys recommend? I was thinking a heely coil, but I don't know how well that would work on the exhaust.

 

Any other ideas?

Lots of the Members here have used the Heli-coil kits to repair stripped threads, they do work. Myself, I don't like them unless absolutely nessecary.

 

What I have done for those exhaust stud threads, is use a 7/16"-14 tap, fits right in the bore of the hole with no drilling needed. Actually, I use two taps. 1st the starter tap, (it's the one with the pointed end), then follow with the bottoming tap, that'll get you a couple more threads in there. I'm a firm believer in coarse threads in soft metals, such as aluminum. You can get Stainless Steel studs to use after you do the tapping, or just use a bolt with lock and flat washers. Be sure to use Anti-sieze on what ever you do finally use, helps with future removal.

helicoil should work fine. other options:

 

you could try the stock thread size and try running a tap through it to see if there's enough material to use...probably not but worth a shot. try using a longer than stock stud or bolt, you can probably reach untouched threads. i'd try a stainless steel bolt first - easiest solution.

 

after that a helicoil would be fine. or you could try tapping the hole to the next largest size and use a larger stud or bolt for that one hole. may or may not require reaming out/drilling out the flange as well if you need more clearance for a larger bolt. best case scenario you tap it to the next largest size and use a bolt and you're done. worst case you'll have to work on the hole in the flange so it fits.

I cut the flange off and rotated it 90 degrees when i made new exhaust so i had 2 new holes to thread into.