6 cylinder (2.2) exhaust bolts

mrscalex

mrscalex

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Okay, what's going on here then. I expected to find 4 nuts and bolts here. I also expected them to be tough to move but at least I expected something I could put a spanner on! I can't see any bolt heads or nuts. My 2.2 breaker is the same.

I've got an engine crane booked for tomorrow! Help!

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These are studs and nuts. The nuts have corroded away to what you see there. You can try heating the nuts red hot and knocking a smaller size socket on and see if they will undo. If not cut them off and heat the flange and knock the remainder of the studs out with a hammer and drift. Replace with nuts and bolts.

Tony.
 
They are studs rather than bolts. Looks to be about the same condition as mine were, in that the nuts have pretty much disintegrated. Took my local exhaust place ages to remove the studs - plenty of heat and hammering removed them eventually.

Sadly what I was left with was in pretty poor state.
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Thanks both. Kinda thought that might be the case. At least you didn't say you think it might be tack welded which was in the back of my mind. That might have been even worse to get off.

If the car was mobile it would be taken straight along to the local exhaust centre. I'm all for DIY but not when paying a few quid saves many hours of precious time.

I don't have heat equipment. And the area is contaminated with traces of fuel from disconnecting the engine so I would have to be careful. I take it a little cheap propane torch is not going to cut the mustard and I would need an oxy-torch? That isn't going to happen.

So I guess it's the cut and whack approach.

So I'm cutting the long thread/remains of nut as close to the system side of the flange as I can? Then as I don't have heat equipment I guess I'm going to have to hire an air hammer? Does this sound like a plan?
 
If you can separate the two sections you can remove the manifold section from the engine, and then remove what's left on the bench where you have better access. Not so much an issue for you if you are removing the engine.

Not having removed a zed engine before, I'm not sure if the manifolds have to come off beforehand anyway.
 
GazHyde said:
Not having removed a zed engine before, I'm not sure if the manifolds have to come off beforehand anyway.
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I'm fairly certain not. But I'll let you know when I've tried. The front panel is coming off to give me the best chance of an easy job anyway :)

I've just spoken to a local mobile welder and he's coming back end of next week to heat them up and knock the studs out :). Should be £85. I appreciate the advice but I'm going to conserve my time instead. Could easily have wasted a whole day's leave doing this and it just doesn't stack up.
 
We had an absolute nightmare trying to get one of these out a couple of weeks ago. We changed exhausts between the 2.0 & 2.8 to save cutting and welding the back box on again and both came off OK but we only used some temporary bolts until we could get better ones. Anyway when I was changing the fluids the other day gookah decided to change over the bolts for better quality ones, only to shear one of the bolts. He spent hours banging and drilling trying to get the old bolt out but it wouldn't budge! Eventually managed to get through and put a smaller nut and bolt in but the rest still needs drilling out and a proper nut and bolt put back in.

Hopefully they won't be as bad as mine were but good luck trying to change them, if it was me I would leave the job to someone else. Once they are out replace them with better nuts and bolts, most zeds seem to have an issue with them.
 
You could try a Nut splitter if you have a good tool shop close by, they are easy to use and do the job in a fraction of the time without to much damage to the studs. get a Sykes Pickavant one if you can they are the best and don't break under extreme use.

Mike
 
The original studs are"splined" into the holes in the manifold so once the manifold is off the engine you can support it over the jaws of a vice and whack it out with a hammer and punch/drift. I wouldn't want to pay someone £85 to do that simple job.

Tony.
 
g8jka said:
Is it as simple as that when the manifold is still on the car? We couldn't budge it no matter how much or hard we whacked it, ended up trying to drill it out.
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To do it on the car you need to get the bit of the flange where the stud head is red hot, they will then knock quite easily.

Tony.
 
you can get the engine out with the manifolds in situ just need a careful bit of manoeuvring, I assume you will take the front slam panel off?
 
The manifolds are not coming off the engine at any time. And yes the slam panel is coming off. I want to make it an exercise in minimal effort and cost. Manifolds don't need to come off when it's a straight swap from a donor Z3, as best as I can tell and as confirmed by Brian H. Take the manifolds off and it's new gaskets - all costs plus effort, possibly lots of with stubborn nuts.

£85 is to also do the donor car, ie 2 cars - in-situ. That sounds like a bargain compared with best part of a day for each car if I struggle with it. And I don't have any means of heating the thing up. So it would be angle grinder and hire/buy an impact hammer/chiesel - not for me thanks.
 
Original's are spline inconel with copper nuts. Replacements then to be nut and bolts.

Take care on how you remove them. You go from fighting corrosion to buying a couple of expensive O2 sensors fairly quickly. Too much beating with a hammer or impact gun will damage the pre-cat O2 sensors (shatter ceramic outer).

Best to remove the sensors before bringing out the hammer.
 
Murray Wall said:
Original's are spline inconel with copper nuts. Replacements then to be nut and bolts.

Take care on how you remove them. You go from fighting corrosion to buying a couple of expensive O2 sensors fairly quickly. Too much beating with a hammer or impact gun will damage the pre-cat O2 sensors (shatter ceramic outer).

Best to remove the sensors before bringing out the hammer.
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Yes, sensors will be coming out.
 
Had a good crack at take the engine end off a 2.2 today! bloody hell, what a royal pain in the arse!

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They didnt leave much space at the BMW factory!
 
I'd want to take the head bolts off even less than the system join bolts :(

The welder came out with his cutting torch but couldn't get the necessary access even on well elevated axle stands to work successfully. He was too concerned about causing damage elsewhere and potentially to himself. He's a well regarded guy locally so nothing to argue with really.

So if I want the engine out I'll have to cut through with the angle grinder. The plan was to cut through the manifolds of the dead engine and the system of the donor car. Then with the parts on the bench he can come back and work more easily to clean out the bolts and I can reassemble a complete system.

But I started to realise this was becoming ridiculous. Something very wrong about cutting through a decent 2.2 exhaust as these are quite sought after and not cheap. Also the concept of removing the engine from a lightly damaged although otherwise very nice 2.2 to a somewhat more needy none Cat'd car just started to make less sense.

The non Cat'd car (silver 2.2) needing the engine will be worth about £2,250 sorted. The Cat'd car (blue 2.2) probably more like £1,500 maybe £1,750 if it comes up really nice. So I'd based previous plans purely on finances.

So the silver car is being bumped down the priorities list and may even get broken. The blue car needs a complete subframe/steering/suspension set-up but that shouldn't be rocket science.
 
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