is there a trick to Exhaust nuts?

I went to replace the pipe with a decat on Saturday

I had to give up because no matter how hard i tried i could not get the nuts on the original downpipe to budge, they were rusted on so tight

Is there any tricks to getting these off? one of them is really awkward as there is no room to move a spanner once its on, and cannot get a good amount of leverage on the spanner on any of them

Soak them for days in penetrating fluid , like plus gas or chemodex penol. Use some heat in them.

Attack it from underneath with long reach sockets and extensions.
You need to remove the Chassis Xmember to get it out and the new one in

Nice one thanks, i didnt go to remove the Xmember until i had the nuts cracked ready, i dont know if i have an extension long enough to get to them from underneath, may have to buy something for it

asnelling said:

Nice one thanks, i didnt go to remove the Xmember until i had the nuts cracked ready, i dont know if i have an extension long enough to get to them from underneath, may have to buy something for it

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You may wish to try the Xmember bolts as mine were rusty as, in the ned had to frind 2 off and chisel the welded nut inside the bracket. Replace these two with nuts and bolts

You need to scream and swear as you turn the socket/spanner. Works for me most times.

Front cross member bolts can be a right sod. I hope the "designer" who thought it was a good thing to put a 10mm head on an M8 screw instead of the usual 13mm was taken out and shot.

Soak them in Plus Gas and if that doesn't work, either get them red hot and chisel them off (I still had to melt the front 4 off) or buy a used cross member and attack the old one and its stoopid screws with an angle grinder.

Captive nuts are easy to get out as they are square nuts with a pip at each corner that are ultra-sonically welded to the chassis plates.

biggeeeee said:

You may wish to try the Xmember bolts as mine were rusty as, in the ned had to frind 2 off and chisel the welded nut inside the bracket. Replace these two with nuts and bolts

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Is it worth doing the Decat pipe? I've thought about it for a while now. Paddocks have a stainless one for about £70 ish.

Front cross member bolts can be a right sod. I hope the "designer" who thought it was a good thing to put a 10mm head on an M8 screw instead of the usual 13mm was taken out and shot.

+1. When I took the cat off mine some kind person rounded off all 16 bolts of the two cross members. I was also removing the centre box hence taking them both off. Lump hammer, chisel, heat and a smashed thumb later, all done.
I would also like to shoot the person who rounded them off in the first place.

Check these before you start. Didn't have any problems with the down pipe bolts though.. so not much help for the original post.

Managed to get exhaust off with just the front x member removed as i split the exhaust into 3
Cut the nuts and studs off the tail pipe and drilled the remainder of the stud out then replaced
With nuts and bolts

Re the decat pipe..dont really see the point personally

De-cat was one of the best pound for pound mods I have done so far, even though the cross member bolts were a swine.

Done in conjunction with an egr delete (£28 from Paddocks) ans a set of new intercooler hoses (I got silicone ones) there is a really noticable power increase.

I have done a step by step "de-restriction bloggy fing" somewhere in this forum that goes into a bit more detail.

This is quite un-nerving. Since I was messing about at work trying to drive up a slag heap and broke the rear box off. And since it was going in on Monday anyway, I thought I'd add it to the list. Think the labour will be going up a bit then.

make sure you use a 6 sided socket and not a 12 star pattern.

The 6 sided one give you allot more force

Thing i might be investing in some proper flank drive sockets soon. They grab on the flats instead of the corners of nut/bolt. So even if they are rounded off. You can usually get them out.

SpiritMR said:

Thing i might be investing in some proper flank drive sockets soon. They grab on the flats instead of the corners of nut/bolt. So even if they are rounded off. You can usually get them out.

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Great shout, i dont have a set but i will certainly look into getting one

SpiritMR said:

Thing i might be investing in some proper flank drive sockets soon. They grab on the flats instead of the corners of nut/bolt. So even if they are rounded off. You can usually get them out.

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I bought a Metrinch set Metrinch-tools - IF THIS CAN'T DO IT, NO TOOL CAN 15 years ago and can't recommend them highly enough. They've got me out of a lot of scrapes, as well as avoiding the 'is it metric or imperial' dilemna. If it fits it's the right size!

One day, I might splash out on the matching sockets.

What size are the downpipe studs?

MJI said:

What size are the downpipe studs?

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10mm,15mm socket size

I got a set of Snap-On flank drives 25 years ago when I was single and had cash to spend on proper tackle. Still going strong and I don't like to use anything else.

We use them on site, on some of the stupidly rusty bolts. You are more likely to snap the head off than round the bolt, but in either case the bolt is fubar anyway so what does it matter?