I declared victory on my intake manifold and camshaft job. I moved on to a "target of opportunity". I bought braided copper cable that was tinned, and toyed with the idea of wrapping the AIR tube with the leak, and putting hose clamps in place to hold the cable.

But, "I wanted to do the right thing". In my mind, that is to replace the damned tube that is going to rust out elsewhere anyway.

To remove it from the header, I had no leverage reaching in from the wheel well to unscrew the AIR tube from a pipe fitting on the header. I thought the right idea would be to remove the header, with the remnants of the AIR tube in place, heat the threads with a torch, and get them out.

There are 8 bolts holding the header to the head. At this point, I removed 4, snapped 1, and rounded 3. PB Blaster is my friend. I have purchased a few more impact sockets and the variances in sizing allow some to work better than others. A big impact driver helps, as does the propane torch to weaken the corrosion grip.

The problem is that the in normal life, header bolts get replaced every few years, when the headers on a Camaro bottom out and rip apart on New England potholes. But these bolts have been in place for 12 years and are very difficult to remove, with how rust resized the heads for me.

I am leaning towards getting a real welder guy to come over and weld nuts for larger bolts on the heads of the rounded bolts. After the header is out, I'll thread a 3/8 nut on the broken bolt and get that welded too.

I have to move the master cylinder to get better access for the welding gear.

The job has to get done!

Matt

New hardware will be ARP stainless steel header bolts. The heads are drilled for "wiring" in place to prevent bolts from backing out. The proper procedure in using these bolts calls for putting "Never Seize" on the threads so the bolts don't find a way of permanently affixing themselves to the cylinder head.
Matt