am i being tucked up !??!

Hi guys

I tried to put a full decat pipe on my TT but was told by my mechanic that he can't remove the bolts that join the down pipe to the engine as the bolts have already been taken off once before and put back on. The mechanic says these "special bolts" are not round and are in fact oval and designed to make the screw thread fit once screwed on and have to be replaced if ever taken off, someone who owned the car before has removed them and put them back on again and now they're stuck !

In order to removed these bolts he has to remove the turbos and get at them from above. - wants to charge me a days work - £250 !

is this normal ? has this ever happened to anyone else ? Is there a cheaper easier way ?

talking crap - there just normal nuts - my decats of been on and off a number of times... just use plenty of WD40! The reason he probably can get them off is there just very stiff... (ooer)

the nuts are STUCK on, tell him to get his arse down the gym

as for oval nuts ive never heard of them if i were you id go some where else to get the job done, in fact id do it myself its not that hard

The bolts to the downpipe can stick, I think they're stainless steel and change density at a different rate to the manifold. When you take them off you have to just twist as hard as you can and hope they don't break.

All 3 of mine snapped when Dude took my cats out, he had a spare downpipe there so replaced it but otherwise the bolts need to be drilled out and replaced.

Come over to my house, I'll only charge you £125 to replace undo the bolts!

did my first pipe on saturday with car on axle stands. Ball ache to do on your back but with a bit of effort they came off with no problem. Oh and deffinatly not oval.

Would love to see the socket he uses to remove these supposed "oval" bolts pmsl !!

cheers guys

So quite simply I need to give it some welly, and if they snap then they should just push out ? and if I round them just Hack saw them off ?

I would do the whole thing myself but i need the mechanic to weld flanges on etc.. as at the moment someone before me welded the back part of the exhaust directly to the second cat ! to make things worse i bought a 3" decat and i only have a 2.5" exhaust !

I might just have a go at getting the bolts off and putting the new ones on and get him to do the rest.

i think i'll wait for it to stop snowing first !

As you can probably tell i'm fairly new to all this, had my TT for about a year and just starting to mod it but fell at the first hurdle.

I think if the studs snap, you'll need to drill them out...

I think it may be worth while taking it to a normal exhaust fitters. will definately be cheaper then £250 to remove a couple of manky old eggsauce bolts!

OVAL BOLTS?! May as well make 'em square.

Either he's lying his face off to you or believes this. Either scenario says to me, walk away, never see this idiot again.

-Ian

the nuts fitted to exhaust manifolds normally have a oval shape to the tip of it, which gives it its locking capabilty to stop the nut coming loose. he could be refering to those type of nuts.

so the saying oval nuts might have some truth in it

I've refitted those a few times and I can assure you they are bastard tight when I take them off again

-Ian

You get what you pay for.... No one has EVER left here, yet, without a full compliment of OE studs and nuts even if they break on removal, and they are watching TV while I do the job. Pitiful, absolutely pitiful.

The best thing for getting difficult manifold nuts undone is not WD40, it's heat.

And I wouldn't recommend attempting it yourself unless you have major equipment and tooling. If you snap a manifold stud whilst trying to remove the nut you might well be looking at drilling out the old stud and retapping a new thread into the cast iron manifold. No fun at the best of times, let alone trying to do it on your back on the driveway. Obviously the car would be pretty much undriveable and stuck at your place until you have the snapped stud replaced. I wouldn't risk it.

 

In order to removed these bolts he has to remove the turbos and get at them from above. - wants to charge me a days work - £250 !

 

Ooh, just spotted something else there, to remove the turbos you have to take the.... can you guess.... exhaust off. Well, downpipe, anyway.

(It *is* possible to take the turbos off leaving the exhaust in place but you'd have to be bloody stupid to try it, because I was and it took about 4 days to take them off and refit hybrids)

-Ian

Obviously the car would be pretty much undriveable and stuck at your place until you have the snapped stud replaced. I wouldn't risk it.

That's one hell of a decat!!!