There's a long story associated with this.
Blaine & Chris had hell's own game keeping the drivers side header collector/head pipe flanges connected on my Jeep. They had moved my 5.9L Dodge Magnum V8 back 3/4" to accommodate a new 3" deep Novak RadLock HD aluminum cross-flow radiator, and after that, the nuts on the flanges kept backing-off (and then literally falling off), such that a fancy ceramic gasket got blown out, followed by an aluminum gasket (which literally got partially melted) after I drove my Jeep home to Utah.
Not knowing the aluminum gasket had been damaged, I proceeded to follow-through on Blaine's suggestion to install longer fine-thread grade 8 bolts with both standard nuts backed up by disturbed-thread nuts. After getting this all bolted together it was obvious that the aluminum gasket had bitten the dust so I had to take everything apart to put in a new copper gasket. The trouble was that I had unfortunately buggered the threads on one of the longer bolts getting it in to one of the three holes in the flanges due to header collector clearance issues. I was able to barely get the lock nut off that bolt, but try as I might, I could not get the first nut off as the threads were trashed by then. So, out came my Dremel and mini cut-off wheels. I finally cut through the bolt and extracted it, but not until I went through 9 or 10 cut-off wheels (due to lack of clearance and my inability to really get a good view of where I was cutting through the bolt.
Anyway, I have a copper gasket in there now which should hold up to the high temps coming out of my modified V8 and the double nuts should hopefully keep the flanges together. I'll also be coming back and re-torquing the nuts as I go though some further heating cycles.
No animals were harmed in the process, but there was a surplus of cussing going on (especially after losing the head off of one of my ball-peen hammers, grenading a 3/8" ratchet wrench adapter, and almost breaking my glasses).
Here are a couple of shots of the finished product:
10-31-2009, 03:08 PM
Header Collector/Head Pipe Flanges from Hell
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