The two lower 12mm nuts were simple enough to loosen after soaking in wd40, although they needed quite a lot of force from a 1/2” socket set using a swivel and a long bar. Lower right accessed from under the car, lower left was reached after removing the left front wheel.
I can get a ring spanner on the topmost nut but I can’t apply enough force to undo it. I looks like it needs a longer lever and a socket but there doesn’t seem to be room for it.
Maybe I’m approaching it wrong. Please can someone advise if there is a usual method of doing this?
Thank you
First of…bin the WD40, its rubbish as a penetrating oil, old school water displacement made from fish scales, that is passed around as the great stuff for everything to use , times have moved on and there is far far better products on the shelf for the correct jobs, it has it’s place but not for this and cars , Wurth 2040 and plus gas are some of the best out there for some.
But any way , now you have thrown the wonder tin for everything in the bin, you will be very very lucky to get this off, as out of the 3 , 1 is always seized solid, we remove the O2 sensor /Lamber sensor and undo the manifold ,then pull the whole thing up through the engine bay to work on it better, that way if it snaps ,its easier to solve off the roadster rather than struggle snap it anyway or round it off and then still remove the whole thing any way.
Sometimes “more is less”
M-m
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Thank you m-m for your detailed reply but oh boy, that’s a great example of how cars are not designed for easy maintenance after being screwed together in the factory.
This started when thieves stole the cat by cutting the front pipe and cat back pipe outside the flanges. My friend did a temporary fix by welding in a straight pipe but it’s MOT time so a cat is needed.
Someone suggested fixing new flanges to a cat then cut and weld the straight pipe to the new flanges. Is that likely to work?
Just fit the correct bits, that way its less hassle further down the line.
M-m
Success! I should mention that it is a late mk1 with 34k miles so perhaps the top nut wasn’t as badly rusted on as it could be on an older high mileage car.
I removed the LH front wheel to gain access to two of the nuts, bottom and top.
At first I tried a slimline 14mm socket with a swivel but couldn’t get it square on to the nut because it fouled on the pipe heat shield.
Then I had a stroke of luck, I tried a wheel brace, the extending type with an angled tip. It is slim at the end so it cleared the heat shield and the angle allowed the socket to fit perfectly over both nuts. Working from inside the wheel arch there was just enough space between the subframe and the body to loosen or tighten the nuts a few degrees. After that a ratchet spanner made easy work of removing them.
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On reassembly it may be necessary to guess tightening torque as I cannot see an easy way to attach a torque wrench,
If a stud breaks or you don’t want to risk it breaking m-m’s method of removing the manifold would seem to be the logical next step.
I hope my fortunate discovery helps others with this problem.
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Good work Stephen
I have sold a lot of these replacement front pipes to go with the shorter 435mm cat, purchased to fit desirable catbacks. There is very little available for the longer 475mm cat and its bespoke front pipe.
A lot of sales and only recently aware of how difficult this front pipe removal job is. As I told you, easy enough to get a ring spanner on the three nuts but clearly not enough torque can be applied to undo them. If the torque can be applied a good chance of the stud snapping. I guess the argument is that these cars are now well past their sell by date so good luck with those heat shield nuts and stud nuts after 25 years and 10+ years after the car could be expected to be at the scrapyard.
After all that fun I hope the constructive side goes well, as I am sure it will.