Disconnecting muffler inlet pipe from exhaust manifold

just a follow up. The bolt moved from the beginning, but I just did not have enough space to make enough of a turn to allow repositioning my 5/8" key, I bought a second one which has it's surfaces slighty different from my 5/8" key. This allowed me to use two different "angles" and by switching between the two for every small move, I managed to get the bolt off. I just took a lot of time (I'm good at Zen these days ). In the grand scheme of things this was just a small effort.

 

hmmm, lots of tiny motions with two or more wrenches to remove a bolt......sounds like an average day working on the car to me, with you on the zen of patience

 

Good job!
It's always nice to get an exhaust bolt out without breaking anything.
Next time though, remove the bolt in the middle of the clutch equalizer. That will make it come apart into 2 pieces and slide off it's bushings to give you room.
Just be careful with the bushings... They were hard to find the last time I looked for some.
Dave

 

Is it just me, or does his equalizer look like it is one piece?
Usually you would look right down on the divider bolt from that angle.

 

why not just unbolt the exhaust maifold and pull the engine and then you can get at the bolt?

 

Glad you finally showed that bolt who's boss......Keep up the effort and your Mav will take you far...... Hotrod-Daddy

 

ratio411, you looked well. My equalizer is indeed in one piece. It does not look in any way like the equaliser shown in the shop manual. It will probably mean that I will need to remove it by unbolting the bracket on the chassis. I think this is yet another deviation from the US standard, as my Maverick was built in Mexico. I could not yet figure out how to remove the equaliser while trying to remove the muffler input pipes (figured it out after the exhaust bolts were off) so I left it in place, and thus restricted my movements. It could have been soo much easier if the equaliser was in two pieces.

 

That is definitely one of the funner nuts on our mav. Have faught it (and won, unless you count cut-up knuckles as losing) a few times. When my heads go on, headers are going on with it, and I will not miss those nuts at all.

 

I pulled the clutch balancer this weekend. This looks like a self made piece, no numbers on it, and very poor welding, but solid enough. The adjustment rod was broken and re-welded in two places, so I'm assuming the original balancer did not survive, and was replaced by this part. Have a look. I did need to remove the bracket on the sidewall to be able to remove the balancer. Also the bushing on the engine pivot is broken, so I will need to look for a replacement. That should be fun! I wonder if the pivot can be removed from the engine, we'll see when the engine is out.