Pepper5000CS

Exhaust manifold bolts are snapped. Place said that they would have to take the manifold off, drill out the bad screws, MAYBE have to re-tap them, then put new bolts in. This is going to run me around $1,300. Quite frankly at this point I'm not willing to dump $300 into this car. Nine thousand dollar mistake. Why couldn't I have had the luck of getting a 5000 that was actually in good condition? *shrug* You'd think with the damn thing not even having 75000 miles on it it wouldn't be giving me this much crap.

Well I have a couple propositions for you guys... if anyone out there knows how to fix it, is not too far away and doesn't feel like rapping me in the behind on a price then let me know.

If anyone wants to BUY the car... throw out a price. We'll talk.

Thanks guys.

-Chris-

Pepper5000CS

Hell even if someone wants to try and explain to me how to take the manifold off I know how to drill bolts out. Let me know.

YOKEL_POKEY

The same thing had happened to my 1985 5000s, and to fix it cost me around $300.00 at a muffler shop.

Pepper5000CS

are you serious? the story better have got changed around from going through my father to me... That deserves for somebody to get slapped.

exact same problem?

YOKEL_POKEY

Yes, it was the same thing. You have to shop around though. Some places see you in an Audi and will try to rip you off!

Pepper5000CS

Was it a run of the mill kinda muffler shop? How did you know they would work on it?

Pepper5000CS

Was it a run of the mill kinda muffler shop? How did you know they would work on it?

Where are you from?

audijim113

mine is an 86 5000 non turbo. yours will be harder to do, but the process is the same.

take off air cleaner box, injector unit and everything else that goes over the top of the intake manifold or in the way on the left side of the engine. i'm not sure what's involved with the turb (lines, hoses, etc), but it is connected to the exhaust manifold and the manifold has to come off.

take off the intake manifold. you will need hex drive on your rachet for this. (not sure what sizes, but buy a set. (if you do any other repairs, you'll need them) the hex head socket bolts are more of a "feel for them" as they are hard to see. also, make absolutely sure you get the hex drive all the way into the socket head bolts or you will strip them. (big mess)

the exhause manifold nuts are regular nuts, but the 2nd to last nut can't be reached with a regular socket. you have to reach underneath with a box end wrench and turn it a little at a time.

once you have everthing out of the way, you'll be looking at the side of you engine with the exhaust studs sticking out (except for the broken ones, which won't stick out.)

take a small pipe wrench or vise grips and rotate the good studs out. give them a shot of liquid wrench first)

the one that are broken are likely to be the furthest back. if there is any part sticking up and you can rotate it with the above tools, go for it.

the best tool for drilling out the ones that are flush is a battery powered "L" head drill. start with a very small, sharp drill bit. being in the dead center is hard to do, but pretty important. i made a template with a hole that bolted to an adjacent good stud and a hole dead center over the broken stud. once you have a pilot hole in the broken stud you are ready for a bigger drill.(don't go too far or you will drill into the water jacket)

i would not use an easy out. if you break if off you are in real trouble. what i did was get a reverse twist drill bit (you won't find them at your neighborhood Lowes or Home depot). go to an industrial tool place.

did you ever drill metal and have the bit "catch"? this is exactly what you want to do with the reverse bit. (have the drill driver in reverse) it will catch. for me, the broken studs backed out with the power of the drill.

the alternative is to take the head off and take it to a machine shop and have them get the broken studs out for you. now just put the new studs in with some lock tite and you're ready to start putting everything back together.

i'm not a mechanic but have been farting around with cars since i was a kid and that's a long time.

good luck.

Pepper5000CS

I really appreciate that. Seriously. I'm going to print that out and show it to some buddies and if we can't find anyone to do it for a decent price then by God I'll be going by this. Again I appreciate the long explanation. Thanks

-Chris-

SteveAngry

Food for thought:

Local wrench here in Michigan said he could remove a head in 2.5 hours at $56/hr. Thats a little over $160 to just pull the head...

Me and a friend did it in about 5-6 hours. We're slow

Removing the head would be easiest option I think. Then you could simply remove the downpipe/turbo/etc and concentrate on the head with the intake and EM sitting on a bench. This will give you easier access to the remaining/broken studs...

How many studs are broken? Also did they say were they were broken? Are they sheared down in the head or broken off at the bolthead or just missing? Probably a combo of all three???

What most likely caused this problem was the failure of the drivers side engine mount. It fails and all the shock from the engine resting on the subframe cracks the manifold or shears the bolts...

Soooo, back to the studs. Recently my friend Jim had some broken studs pulled from a NG head at a engine machine shop. They charged him $8.00 a stud. Not bad IMHO if you can't do it yourself...

It seems to me that if you get all new studs/bolts/gasket/headgasket/turbo line gasket/drivers side engine mount/exhaust donut/etc from performancemotorcars.com and did the labor yourself you could get it all done for around $200-$250.

The key to owning an older Audi is learning to do somethings yourself. Otherwise it just gets too darn expensive!

Email this guy: QSHIPQ@aol.com

He has a Audi performance repair shop near downtown Chicago. He is well respected in the Audi community and knows the 10 valve engine very well. He will tell you what needs to be done and how much.

Good luck man!
Steve
Michigan