What are the chances that I could just tighten the nuts which hold the heat exchangers on without pulling the studs out?

I'm about to set the car up for a morning valve adjustment and figured I'd spray the exhaust nuts with pb blaster and let it soak overnight in hopes of tightening them up.

When I have had the HE,s leak at the head, the only way it got them to stop was to remove the muffler, but leave on bolt holding the weight at the rear bracket.
Then I tighten up the heat exchangers...

After tight, I install the muffler again.

Rich

I too recently took off the Heat exchangers and I had a stud come out. I suppose I would just double up on the nut and screw it back in again, right? Anything else to do while I am there?

Noob question prolly, but thanks in advance.

Replace the copper gaskets that go between the heads and the heat exchangers. Be careful not to over tighten the nuts on the studs. It can cause the ears on the heat exchangers to bend, and pulled studs for the exhaust.

Remember, everything on these engines tightens up when they get hot.

Oh.. and be careful putting a stud back in the head. It is easy to over torque them and rip the threads out of the head.

use a 1/4 " drive ratchet.

harder to fuck it up that way.

I screwed up the ears on my new to me ss exchangers using a 3/8" ratchet.

I know what by it's so loud now...

My right side exchanger is only held on by one nut! the muffler end is missing nuts too. You can guess who worked on it last.

My car is backfiring on deceleration, not to hijack the thread, but could it be that I have loose HE's? It started when I put the stock muffler on....

Stop whining and go jack it up and fix it.


Rich

It is jacked up... I don't have any nuts for it. Are the copper ones available from the flaps?

Just get normal nuts, they work fine

Done and DONE! Sounds much better!

There is a Mercedes nut used on their exhaust manifolds that work great on the 914 heat exchangers. They are treated so they don't seize to the studs, and they have a flange that fits the heat exchanger really well.

And for the muffler, use longer bolts and double nut them. The bolts won't back out that way, and you don't have to worry about pulled head studs because the bolt holding the muffler to the boomerang fell out.

You can get a 8mm thread nut that takes a 12mm wrench instead of a 13mm.
Called a JIS nut

https://www.belmetric.com/metric-nuts-jis-s...CFceCfgodqSwA4A

It makes it easier to get a socket on with the smaller nut

It is a whole 'nother topic, but I think I remember that a lot of participants on this forum anneal the copper washers first. Am I remembering correctly?

Get out the torch and heat the washer to red hot. Let it cool in the air, then install. I barely made it out of metallurgy (30 years ago) so I would not consider myself very knowledgeable of all the microscopic reasons. But I do remember that the tuning fork feature of a heated washer went away vs. a non heated one.

I like the theory. That link did not have copper. I suppose there are lots of cars out there without copper nuts on the exhaust.

Are these copper washers available?

I think there is some confusion above.
The copper "washers" are the gaskets, and yes they should be annealed with a torch before use.

http://www.pelicanparts.com/catalog/SuperC...P_pg1.htm#item2