fuck... sheared fuel rail bolt...
 

the one further to the back of the engine came out just fine, but the one in the front was VERY difficult and i was terrified i would shear it. MOves it out a little, then back in a little and hit it with PB blaster... repeat.. repeat... almost out.. almost out.. snap... dammit....

got an extractor into it, and it just stalled the couple of drills i was trying to use to extract it... then i tried to drill it and couldn't get a good angle on it, along with not having a very good bit for metal, so drilling it out didn't go well either.

tomorrow i'll try a better drill bit,i suppose. maybe i can just drill it out and tap. who knows, maybe if i heat the aluminum of the manifold where the bolts thread into it'll allow itself to be extracted?

on the plus side, if i put the other bolt back in and tighten it down nice and snug, the fuel rail doesn't really move... zip ties, anyone? ;-)

After heating the surrounding material (and while it is still very hot) stick a piece of paraffin wax against the sheared bolt and let it melt and be drawn into the threads. Repeat once or twice.

hmm, sounds like it might do something useful. only thing i'm scared of is puttting a torch anywhere near that area, considering i took the fuel injectors out and spilled fuel everywhere... though, by tomorrow around noon, when i get back to working on the car, i imagine it will have evaporated off...

If you've buggered the intake manifold in the process, what engine is it? I'll be parting out my other 1.6... especially since when I get my engine built my wife will be tapping her foot at the mess of parts in the garage.

not a huge deal really, at the worst you'd need a new intake manifold. Though i can't imagine how those bolts got stuck so bad in an aluminum manifold. Either way if you can get it out, just drill and tap it a size up, and it doesn't need to be super tight just snug plus a little. I wouldn't use zip ties on it, just not worth it

ended up drilling a hole all the way through and feeding through a machine screw with a nut on the other side. does the trick.

So when the nut comes off it gets sucked into your motor?

that's the plan. :-)

i put a lock washer on both sides and loc-tite'd it. it's not going anywhere.also, even if it did fall off, it's outside the manifold and would likely just fall to the ground.

Just checking. I thought you had a nut on the inside of your intake tract. Thought you might be having a case of the Mondays.

heh, i was, but only because my weekend project will span at least another weekend and i likely burned out my 440's and fused them open...

but, i suppose no turbo install is meant to a.) go smoothly, and b.) only take one weekend.

(read that as, if you got your car boosted and running in a weekend, i don't want to hear about it :gtfo:)