May The Buick Gods Help Me!

[thewoodieb]

I just recently bought an 86 T-type with a TA-60 turbo and 009's. I bought a 3.5" Terry Houston downpipe remake, and it does not fit! Has this ever happend to anyone else? IT's off quite a bit, my guess is the bend in the pipe is wrong, because the flange bolts fine to another 60 housing just fine. Also in the process I broke the stock upper elbow bolt, about a 1/4" is hanging out, and vice grips will not break it. My next try was to tack weld a really long bolt to it for torque. Easy-Outs are next to impossible at this angle especially with an a/c car, plus the bolt is to locked and far to small, so a high risk of breaking the Easy-Out is possible. I would like to keep the turbo in the car and I don't have the money for a machinist right now. I am a college student in the middle of moving and I would like to remove this bolt quickly because it's being a thorne in a$$ right now. Thanks guys, do your worst!

 

[FreeBoost]

I just recently bought an 86 T-type with a TA-60 turbo and 009's. I bought a 3.5" Terry Houston downpipe remake, and it does not fit

Whose pipe is it? Do you have stock headers or aftermarket headers? I had the same problem with a 3.5 DP I bought. I cut the pipe on the last straight section and clamped it with a cut up tim can and some worm gear clamps. I the rotated the last bend to line up with the exhaust. Took it off and had it welded.

Also in the process I broke the stock upper elbow bolt, about a 1/4" is hanging out, and vice grips will not break it. My next try was to tack weld a really long bolt to it for torque.

Probably your best bet – this worked for me once. Replace those bolts with studs. The bolt will seize in almost every time, with stud it doesn’t matter.

 

[thewoodieb]

Dp

Whose pipe is it? Do you have stock headers or aftermarket headers? I had the same problem with a 3.5 DP I bought. I cut the pipe on the last straight section and clamped it with a cut up tim can and some worm gear clamps. I the rotated the last bend to line up with the exhaust. Took it off and had it welded.



Probably your best bet – this worked for me once. Replace those bolts with studs. The bolt will seize in almost every time, with stud it doesn’t matter.

Sounds like a plan. We are getting another 3.5 DP, I am not sure who makes it, but a buick specialty shop bought it for me and it cost me over 300 bucks, the headers are stock. Hopefully the welding plan works to remove the bolt and hopefully the dp works this time around otherwise i am going to be pissed. The kit comes with stainless bolts.

 

[FreeBoost]

You might consider putting in new motor mounts first. It's common for them to sag and cause header/DP fitment problems.

 

[thewoodieb]

Motor mounts

You might consider putting in new motor mounts first. It's common for them to sag and cause header/DP fitment problems.

Yeah I will take that into consideration, right now I have a torque strap(came on the car when I bought it) It was off by a lot, Im not sure they would sag this much, but I guess anything is possible. Thanks for all of your help!

 

[thewoodieb]

As for the bolt.

As for the broken bolt, I had ZERO luck with the welding idea. I tried the bolt idea, tried a nut, tried welding a crappy wrench to it, and NOTHING! I must have spent 2 hours adjusting the welder trying to get it to stick, a huge waste of time, my guess: the bolts are not stock they must be treated in some fashion. Then it finally hit me; since these bolts aren't stock and they barely thread in one turn, making it about two thread steps. Why not just drill until i reach the end of the bolt and leave the remainin 3/4" of threads on the turbo rather than struggle with a heli-coil installation. I don't see why that wouldn't be feasable. Let me know what you think. Look at my sketch below.

Now this is going to be done very tediously, with EXTREME caution, but as always let me know what you think!

 

[FreeBoost]

I'd say it's time for a machine shop. Why chance screwing up the turbo to try and save a few bucks. I had a bolt broken off flush with the body. Then I broke an easy-out in the turbo. The machine shop got it all out without having to re-tap. They welded on a stud onto the broken nub and turned it out. They probably also heated the turbo first.

 

[thewoodieb]

Broken bolt still brokeded

I'd say it's time for a machine shop. Why chance screwing up the turbo to try and save a few bucks. I had a bolt broken off flush with the body. Then I broke an easy-out in the turbo. The machine shop got it all out without having to re-tap. They welded on a stud onto the broken nub and turned it out. They probably also heated the turbo first.

When you took your turbo in to the machine shop, did you give them the whole turbo? The broken bolt on mine is the top bolt on the exhaust housing, sadly the main sealer. How much did it cost for you to have the bolt tapped? Thanks for you help.

 

[thewoodieb]

All done?

So here is what I have been through with this broken bolt. When the bolt broke I tried vice grips, it chewed the remains off. Then I tried welding a small nut onto it, it didn't fuze properly. After welding I tested out the heating process, not a budge. Last night I started the drilling idea pictured above, and managed to break a small piece of drill bit inside of the hole I started, that resulted in the purchase of a nitride coated bit set, "3 x stronger the regular drill bits". Bullsh*t. The bits just bounced off of the small bit. I gave up after that, plus a jumping roundhouse kick to the side of my garage. This morning I decided to call around to some local machine shops to get some advice, and as always I got, "well we'd have to take a look at'er". I asked about doing the job with the turbo in the car and got a swift "no". What happend to all of the ballsy machinist's, they are all a bunch of button pushers and lever pullers these days. After the phone convo's I decided to remove the turbo and take it to a "pro". So, I remove the elbow and noticed the small piece of broken drill bit fell out! I went on to remove the turbo anyways, it wasn't until after a few grunts that I realized that turbo wasn't going anywhere. So I broke out the drill! I got the hole spot on with a free roam drill, a 20 dollar Black and Decker at that. The whole was sized to 7/32 drill bit, after that the bits were port locking, stopped at a bridge. When I got it there, I went to LOWES HOME IMPROVEMNT(where's my sponsorship pay?) and picked up a 1/4 28 tap, and wise words: drill a little bit bigger because it is next to IMPOSSIBLE to find 28 bolts anywhere! So the hole got tapped, I tapped it all night long, no not really it actually only took 30 seconds, I just thought you might like that last part:tongue:. Then I put the bolt into it's place, turned it in and out, in and out, for a smooth finish(im on a roll, lol). So a final statment: FINISHED AND FIXED. Plus the good thing about using a smaller bolt is, if I ever have a problem with the new threads, whats to stop me from drilling a tad bigger and going with a larger more aggressive tap. Life is good, for now. Thanks for all of your help! I will start a new thread with a the same or similar thread title if I run into some new problems. Keep a look out!

P.S: This turbo is larger then stock, otherwise I wouldn't have even tried; I would have just used it as an excuse to get a better one.