rusted old exhaust manifolds

1993 ford thunderbird lx 3.8l
well i'm trying to remove my exhaust manifolds, and it's hard enuf with them right against hte wheel well, adn teh fact that they are rusted to shit just makes it worse. i got all the exhaust man->cylinder head bolts, but only one of hte pipes to manifold nuts on both sides. the ones i can't reach are both covered by a heat shield on both sides of the car. anyone got any pointers/ideas to get these off? I tried removing the LH heatshield, but the bolt is so rusted it just rounded it, and i didn't use a bit that was too big :P. If anyone has any information on how to get this off or just make it easier, plz share. Thanks everyone.

I had to remove the left front tire and splash shield. After that I could get to the collector bolts. Forget about removing the heat shield...

hmm ok, so you never took off the shield?

hmm how about the RH side? cuz there's a solid block of metal in my way :P

well i finally got one of them out, and looking at them, they're in very ugly shape. So which would be better:

Getting out my wire brush rotary tool and cleaning them off

Or buying new ones (definitely want to get new bolts).

I trie dlooking for het manifolds or just the bolts alone and I could not find either. So can someone direct to where I can find these things? Thanks in advance.

wow! you are really determined to remove those studs aren't you? oxy aceteline torch? dangerous! safety first.

well one side the nut is stuck and by turning the nut i ended up removing the stud itself w/ the nut permanently attached. thus why i want to get new manifolds or at least new bolts

Clean what you have the best you can and use anti seize on them. On the right hand side I had to use a swivel and some extensions and a few cuss words.

thx for all the tips guys, but what if i just wanted to buy new ones? Anyone know a place?

nobody at all knows?

Midas? Meineke? Bud's Muffler Shop?

so you're saying i can get just the bolts by contacting them?

I don't have a clue. But if I needed new bolts I would imagine they would have or could find new ones due to having the same problems we had.