I have read horror stories of broken exhaust manifold studs and the nightmare of drilling and tapping new threads. It seemed that a lot of the pain associated with that was due to the inaccessibility of the studs while working on the exhaust with the motor still in the car.
Since I already pulled the motor on my car for some unrelated work, I had extremely easy access to each one of the studs. As far as heating tools go, I didn't have anything better than a propane torch to heat up the studs to break through the corrosion.
After much internal debate, I decided to fork over around $180 for an induction heater from Amazon. This tool is AMAZING and I have already found several uses for it as I have continued to disassemble the car. It heats up a bolt red hot in less than 30 seconds with no flame, thus eliminating any unintended damage to the surrounding areas.
Here's a video I took during the process of removing one of the studs:
I was so pleased that this worked so well. After using the heater, I was able to loosen all 12 of the exhaust manifold studs without breaking any of them!
Off came the exhaust manifolds and gaskets. I'll have to clean up this mating surface before I put on the new exhaust. More to come!
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