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66 Coronet 500 Driver, Light Resto

I just drilled it out carefully using increasing sizes of bits and finally an easy out. The trick is getting the first hole straight and centered.
 
That car is going to be a fun driver. Are you going to try to buff out the paint or leave it with some patina?

Can't do much with crappy clearcoat. Strip and redo. Crappy clearcoat does NOT equal "patina", it's just bad paint.
 
I just drilled it out carefully using increasing sizes of bits and finally an easy out. The trick is getting the first hole straight and centered.
I found a drill guide, but I'm going to try to weld a nut to it first. A guy that does a lot of them for his work and in his home garage looked at it yesterday and said I may be able to get it out that way. If not, and I screw it up, these heads are cheap and easy to find.
 
It may take a few tries, the heat and cool cycles will help break it loose.
I had to do about 8, in the vehicle, on a 68 caddy 472.
That was a true nightmare.
 
It may take a few tries, the heat and cool cycles will help break it loose.
I had to do about 8, in the vehicle, on a 68 caddy 472.
That was a true nightmare.
Sounds like it. Thank you. I will try my best to get it out.
 
Ok, so gave up for the day and came inside. I need to snap a pic of all the nuts I've used that just twisted off. Seems I can't get weld penetration into the stud for some reason. I moved onto the other broken stud and after 3 or 4 tries it came out. That fueled my fire to go back to the first stud. 5 or 6 more tries and no movement. Going to ask a few friends for some input/encouragement.
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Are those to original closed chamber 516's? Hard to tell from the pics due to the carbon build up
 
Are those to original closed chamber 516's? Hard to tell from the pics due to the carbon build up
I did not bother looking, but now that you've asked I will go out and look. I'll post up the number. I am sure they are the original for the 66 361.
 
Ok, so gave up for the day and came inside. I need to snap a pic of all the nuts I've used that just twisted off. Seems I can't get weld penetration into the stud for some reason. I moved onto the other broken stud and after 3 or 4 tries it came out. That fueled my fire to go back to the first stud. 5 or 6 more tries and no movement. Going to ask a few friends for some input/encouragement.View attachment 1327304
Keep trying to pound the stud with weld/heat and then work your way out to the nut
 
After countless times, I remembered that old adage, the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results. With that in mind, I called my neighbor down the street and discussed some things I had been bouncing around. One of them was heating up the stud. The reasoning behind this was it appeared the weld was not sticking to the stud, which made me think all that iron around it was dissipating the heat, not allowing the weld to properly bond to the stud. I dug out my torches and put the weld tip on it and heated the stud up. Then, I welded directly to the stud with no nut, then put a nut on it and welded to that. It actually moved about 1/2 turn and then broke off. Progress! I had to grind some of the weld off the cast iron and then heated again and welded the nut to the stud and it moved again before it broke! Then, my neighbor, Mike, swung by and we double teamed it. I put all my weld gear on and he used the torch to heat the stud and then I used the magnet to place the nut on and welded it while everything was still hot. I got about 1 full turn before the nut broke off. Success! We did that 2 more times and then, it came all the way out! Yay! Finally!
Tomorrow is Mopar Nats, tomorrow night is Street Car Takeover at the local track, then Saturday I think I can start putting this thing back together. I have a head gasket on order, but if I spot one at the nats, I'm picking it up so I can get this back together. Can't wait! I'll finally hear it with no exhaust leaks for the first time!
Pics of all the nuts I used, lol. I think I'm getting low. Lol. And the bastard himself, finally outed.
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I've been working on it, chipping away when I can between garage projects. Got the head surfaces all cleaned up, manifold cleaned up, block deck cleaned up and head gasket placed. I was going to wait til a friend was around to help me, but I thought, how hard could it be? Answer was fricking near impossible. I got the head down onto the block, but couldn't get it on the dowel pins, I tried 5 or 6 times and then said screw it and got the largest phillips screwdriver I had and got the head on there close, steadied with one hand while I stuck the screwdriver into a bolt hole and used it to leverage the head up and onto the dowel pins, clunked right on. But I'm pretty sure the gasket is ganked and I scratched the head surface pretty good struggling with this lead brick of a head. Only time will tell I guess. Just shows what an imbecile I am. I should have waited for an extra set of hands to show up. I got the head torqued, all the intake bolts in and a few tight, pushrods and rockers on and tightened down. Just need exhaust manifold on and plug wires and she's ready to fire. Those are new Champion plugs I put in as well.
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After countless times, I remembered that old adage, the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results. With that in mind, I called my neighbor down the street and discussed some things I had been bouncing around. One of them was heating up the stud. The reasoning behind this was it appeared the weld was not sticking to the stud, which made me think all that iron around it was dissipating the heat, not allowing the weld to properly bond to the stud. I dug out my torches and put the weld tip on it and heated the stud up. Then, I welded directly to the stud with no nut, then put a nut on it and welded to that. It actually moved about 1/2 turn and then broke off. Progress! I had to grind some of the weld off the cast iron and then heated again and welded the nut to the stud and it moved again before it broke! Then, my neighbor, Mike, swung by and we double teamed it. I put all my weld gear on and he used the torch to heat the stud and then I used the magnet to place the nut on and welded it while everything was still hot. I got about 1 full turn before the nut broke off. Success! We did that 2 more times and then, it came all the way out! Yay! Finally!
Tomorrow is Mopar Nats, tomorrow night is Street Car Takeover at the local track, then Saturday I think I can start putting this thing back together. I have a head gasket on order, but if I spot one at the nats, I'm picking it up so I can get this back together. Can't wait! I'll finally hear it with no exhaust leaks for the first time!
Pics of all the nuts I used, lol. I think I'm getting low. Lol. And the bastard himself, finally outed.
View attachment 1327429View attachment 1327430View attachment 1327431View attachment 1327432View attachment 1327433
Perfect. After a while a guy starts looking for better nuts that weld nicer too lol.
 
Time for an update. I made the mistake of running a die on each of the old studs and ended up screwing one up. Put the manifold on and the nut wouldn't tighten up. So I tried welding a nut on and it just kept breaking off until it broke off inside the head. We used torches to heat the head and I guess since it was bolted down the rest of the engine it acted like a heat synch and wouldn't let it expand enough to come out. I'm pissed and just haven't felt like working on it. I bought a drill guide from OTC and I have a MAC left hand drill bit and extractor set I will try to use. If it gets too much more of a mess, engine is coming out as I am fricking tired of bending over the fenders.
 
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Since I didn't want to mess with the stud, I figured I would get the brakes moving along. Well, I knocked out the bearing races and got the new ones put back in. I thought I would turn the drums while it was apart and that was a fail as I don't have all the adapters that go with the brake lathe, so about 350 bucks later, I have the adapters coming. I may put new shoes on depending how the drums turn out.
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All the adapters came in, so I'm going to turn the drums and decide if I'm putting new organic shoes on it or not.
I am going to attempt to drill the stud out tomorrow as well. Can't wait to drive this. I'm motivated after being at the US nats.
 
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Some motivation for you.

Mine last weekend.

Took it to a local cars and coffee yesterday. And the drive home was mucho excellent.

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Well, motivated, devil may care attitude, I got out to the garage and got the car ready. I had my new tool lined up, positioned over the broken stud and I had double, triple checked the positioning, so I felt ready to go. I found the tiniest drill bit I had, it is a 1/16", and screwed the 1/16" drill guide into the OTC tool. I drilled it in and it worked pretty damn well. I pulled the guide out and inspected the hole. It was pretty damned centered. I gradually increased the guides up to the 1/4" and the hole was pretty much dead centered. The tool was worth the 60 bucks. I drilled freehand with 2 larger bits, the final being 19/64". I then ran the 3/8" tap and after a sphincter wrenching half hour, I got the tap through to the other side. I ran the tap out and in, then cleaned out the hole. I got the new stud and screwed it in. It got tight! I sealed it with silicone and tightened it up!
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