# Bolt on passenger side exhaust manifold will not fit due to clearances.



## Hawkdanop (Mar 13, 2021)

This is a hard problem to define but hopefully I can do my best and someone might have some advice.
I recently took my passenger side cylinder head off to check on a bad cylinder. I have most of the 389 back together but I have a problem with the third from the front exhaust bolt. The way this exhaust header is designed make it so only almost only the bolt head can fit in the space between the hole and the pipe bending backwards. If the other bolts on the manifold are on and the manifold is mated to the block (with the gasket inbetween) The bolt wont even get into the hole cause their is no clearance. 

Right now, I have backed off the other bolts and was planning on starting with bolt 3, but the another part of the exhaust pipe is rubing on the wheel well below so when I pull the exhaust back, it starts rising following the wheel well and mis aligned the bolt with the hole on the block. 

Taking the bolt out was a lot of jiggling. The person who had the car got this exhaust on somehow but Im not sure how unless they had the whole engine out, which is a possibility. 

The only solution I could think of was to just keep trying or take apart the whole cylinder head again and maneuver it that way. Thoughts?


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## 1969GPSJ (Feb 26, 2020)

could you put in a stud & nut vs bolt??


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## PontiacJim (Dec 29, 2012)

Hawkdanop said:


> This is a hard problem to define but hopefully I can do my best and someone might have some advice.
> I recently took my passenger side cylinder head off to check on a bad cylinder. I have most of the 389 back together but I have a problem with the third from the front exhaust bolt. The way this exhaust header is designed make it so only almost only the bolt head can fit in the space between the hole and the pipe bending backwards. If the other bolts on the manifold are on and the manifold is mated to the block (with the gasket inbetween) The bolt wont even get into the hole cause their is no clearance.
> 
> Right now, I have backed off the other bolts and was planning on starting with bolt 3, but the another part of the exhaust pipe is rubing on the wheel well below so when I pull the exhaust back, it starts rising following the wheel well and mis aligned the bolt with the hole on the block.
> ...



Not much room at all. Possible solution. Slot the bolt hole in the header, either from the bottom up or top down, insert the bolt into the head, then slide the header up/down over the bolt and tighten. You don't want to cut completely through the flange, just from the bolt hole down/up so you still have the opposing flange uncut/connected.

Do not know if that will do it, but many headers are dimpled at that bolt to allow you to get a bolt int, but the tubes also have more tube coming off the flange then curving down. More tube does not look like it would fit at all for you.


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## armyadarkness (Dec 7, 2020)

I've done it many times. Yes, you need to start that bolt first. Also, you should be using bolts that have very small heads on them... a 3/8 bolt, but no more than a 3/8 or 7/16 socket head as well!

If you try to use a 3/8 bolt with a 1/2 or 9/16 head, forget it.

I would also use Mr Gaskets locking bolts, so that you never have to do it again! There are also Stage 8 lockers, but they're near impossible to use on many of the bolts


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## Sick467 (Oct 29, 2019)

My old Hooker headers had key holes in a few of the key bolt holes and I had to use the bolt style that Army posted. The tube closest to the A-arm bolt (in your pic) had to be dented in on mine to get the right wiggle to even get the #3 bolt started. Your #3 bolt has to be started first and barely started at that. Then the other tight spots started, maybe #2. Those can be snugged up, then the easy ones installed.

Army's header bolts are KEY and you may find that slots or keyholes are still required.


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## Hawkdanop (Mar 13, 2021)

Thanks Sick and Army. 

For an update, my heads actually ended up having key holes. I thought to myself, awesome, ill just move the headers forward, put the bolt in and call it a day. Well it turns out, one of the pipes rams right into this little nub on the crossmember so it won't let me shift the headers forward enough to get the key hole. I player around with the idea of taking the headers out completely but that would mean taking off my oil filter connector and that wasn't 100% going to work for sure. 

What I ended up doing was taking the whole cylinder head off again, putting the bolt into the head and shifting the whole head back for a second to get the bolt in the key and then shifting the head forward. Huge pain in my butt but its on their now.


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## Sick467 (Oct 29, 2019)

That's a new approach! Glad it worked out...where there is a will, there's a way.


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