Blood Sacrifice

The car Gods were angry with me.

They demanded a blood sacrifice before I could complete the task at hand, which was extracting a broken off exhaust manifold stud from the head of the Z.

The head stud had been broken off at some time in the distant past. I didn't break it, so it must have been broken when I bought it, ten years ago. Since I had never even entertained the notion of removing the manifold, I had no idea there was something wrong. It wasn't making any noises or anything.

After being there for who knows how long, I knew it would be difficulty to get it out.

It was when I broke the third easy-out that I sliced open the side of my thumb. It bled copious amounts of blood. After that, I got the broken out stud out.

First I drilled a small hole in the stud and soaked it in rust buster. Then I broke my first easy-out.

I had to walk away.

So I went down and bought a diamond drill bit to drill out the easy out, which was broken off below the surface of the head.

I drilled a slightly larger hole maybe half way through the stud, tried the next size up. Snapped the very top of the easy-out odd. That left enough that I could get my stud puller on the shaft of the easy-out, which promptly broke. Because I was herking on the wrench with ell my might when It broke, it took a divot out of the side of my thumb.  

It left just enough grip that I could get the easy-out removed. I got a slightly larger diamond drill bit and drilled all the way down the length of the stud, and put the larger easy-out in the hole

At last I could get the leverage I needed to extract the stud. And I still have plenty of threads left in the head to insert a new stud.

A lot of struggle over one exhaust manifold stud.

At least that is done, and now I can start putting things back together.