When we last left our intrepid hero, he had gathered many a solution to his problem of a broken TA stud (3mm OD); weld on a nut, double nut, pipe wrench, Col. Mustard in the Parlor with a Lead Pipe. Oh, so many choices to make ! He was seen with chin in hand contemplating his future gazing at the engine compartment for days.
His original plans consisted of hoping that gremlins would remove the stud for him, a miracle would occur, time would go backwards to before it was broken, deux ex machina waiting in the wings....anything that would not involve him in shearing off the stud flush to the block.....but I digress. So I settled for a more proactive treatment regime - a squirt of PB Blaster every day while it sat in the driveway. About 2 weeks ago, I drained the radiator and removed the TA from the manifold for better access to stud for the PB Blaster to soak in. All in all, about 3 weeks of the PB Blaster Basting Protocol. This Sunday I went for the Gold - applied my needle-nosed ViceGrips to the stud and tried to turn it. At first the pliers slipped until I cranked it down harder. A bit of initial resistance and then it turned! Yes, as anti-climatic as it sounds, I was able to unscrew it with the ViceGrips without incident. My Relief was apparent through out the neighborhood at that instance. The new stud was installed with a dab of anti-seize, the new TA installed, radiator filled, and the TA gap adjusted to .019". My GTV is whole again and ready to go to the track. Bruce PS - I had another spare TA stud and thought of replacing the unbroken one...but I refrained from trying my Luck any further for the day. On Mon, Jun 7, 2010 at 9:31 AM, Bruce Giller <[email protected]> wrote: > Over the weekend I managed to shear off on the the studs holding the TA > bulb in the the coolant jacket on the my GTV. Surprisingly it did not leak > at full temp with the remaining stud. I do have new studs which I purchased > years ago for just a situation and I'll be replacing both at the same time. > > These are pretty small studs (3 mm dia.?) in a very constricted space for > tool insertion and manipulation. Has anyone tackled this problem with the > engine in the car ? > > Thanks, > Bruce -- to be removed from alfa, see http://www.digest.net/bin/digest-subs.cgi or email "unsubscribe alfa" to [email protected]
