I've got a 99' mazda miata 1.8L. I turbo'd it in December and it's been doing pretty good. But for some reason one of the exhaust studs backed out a few weeks ago. No biggie, tightened it back. Had a bad feeling though, cause it was tight screwing in, making me thing the threads must be damaged. It started leaking again and today I tried to tighten it and it's stripped. ----. It's an utter BITCH to take all the ---- off to actually remove the manifold. I'm in college right now so I can't take it all apart.

So how can I fix this? My best guess is to remove stripped stud, drill the hole in the manifold where the stud goes bigger and then attempt to drill, tap, helicoil, install new stud. This MIGHT be possible, but there's not a lot of room It will fun trying to tap it straight. Any other way?

Leakage. It's worse than this now.

 

you can use a helicoil and still use the same sided stud.

 

cracked mani you got their could be the leak.

 

Yeah, if the stud's ok I'll reuse it and just helicoil it. At least with a helicoil it will be stronger. That's a relief cut in the manifold, not a crack.

 

Can I suggest Timeserts in place of helicoils? much easier to use and higher success rate.

 

Drill, tap, helicoil, install new stud; DONE.

 

drill and tap it

 

This is a smart man, listen to him.

 

I bought a helicoil kit but I haven't fixed it yet. Helicoil looks better to me than a time-sert. Granted for this, either would work. But I've already got a helicoil kit.

 

Looks like a stress cut if that's what your talking about