Exhaust manifold removal

[romeroom]

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2003 Vibe AWD

After discovering that the cat converter built into the exhaust manifold is the one plugged--not the one downstream ("lucky me"), I've decided to remove the exhaust manifold and gut out the cat portion of it.

I've never removed an exhaust manifold. I'm concerned about breaking a bolt or two.

Suggestions?

[silverbullet]

i cant help with too much detail because i imagine your awd is different than my base i recently changed the manifold on. but i was also worried about breaking a bolt so for about a week and a half i sprayed all the bolts and nuts with pb blaster every night. seemed to help i didnt break anything. also use the shortest tools possible to eliminate the ability to apply so much torque. i did all mine with 3/8 drive ratchets. bigger tools seem to make it easier to break parts. also the small bolts on the heat shield were in such bad shape i could not get them off, so i just beasted it out and tore it off. its pretty thin metal, be careful sharp tho. good luck.

[romeroom]

i cant help with too much detail because i imagine your awd is different than my base i recently changed the manifold on. but i was also worried about breaking a bolt so for about a week and a half i sprayed all the bolts and nuts with pb blaster every night. seemed to help i didnt break anything. also use the shortest tools possible to eliminate the ability to apply so much torque. i did all mine with 3/8 drive ratchets. bigger tools seem to make it easier to break parts. also the small bolts on the heat shield were in such bad shape i could not get them off, so i just beasted it out and tore it off. its pretty thin metal, be careful sharp tho. good luck.

Thanks for the words of advice. I started regular blasts on the heat shield bolts yesterday. Never thought of the use of a smaller size wrench to minimize excessive torque. I was actually thinking of using an impact wrench on the lowest setting.