Tranny pan, Oil Pan, Valve covers, Exhaust repairs to a '79

[Ecordeddie]

I'm by no means a pro mechanic. I just have an engineering degree, a shop manual and a strong desire to always ask why or how'd you do that. Guess that makes me good enough to be dangerous...

Anyway,

I recently replaced the valve covers for my '79 vette. That was pretty easy. I had to remove the air cleaner and loosen the alt...other than that it was a snap. I was surprised on how loose the valve cover bolts were... If you have a torque wrench you may want to check yours if you've got any leaking.

I also replaced the tranny pan gasket and filter... that was even easier to do. (No spare parts in the pan when I removed it... thank god). Again the bolts were really loose as well.

The oil pan was somewhat difficult because I had to raise the vehicle off the floor with jack stands so the front tires were free. Had to do that because you apparently have to remove the steering idler arm from the frame then and unbolt the exhaust from the manifolds to get clearance to remove the oil pan....and again the oil pan bolts were loose as hell. I'm using a Fel-pro one piece gasket to replace the existing. I hope the leaks will end.

After all that I finally get to my question:
During the exhaust removal, at the manifold, the passenger side manifold to exhaust pipe bolts sheared off... all three. Yippe.

Do I have to remove the manifold and get a new one because of this? The bolts that sheared off are press fitted into the down pipe of the manifold. I am just guessing that the manifold removal could be a real bee-auch.

Your thoughts?