It's the second time I've removed this, but the first time was nearly five years ago and for the life of me I don't remember struggling so much getting it off. It's the studs in the front timing cover that were the most difficult to move around. Silly because they're not *that* big of an obstacle, but there's so little clearance with the oil cooler piping, that every millimeter of clearance in that area matters.

Has anyone changed those studs to bolts? I noticed that the oil pan holes are a little larger where the three studs are located.

Speaking of studs, was replacing the exhaust manifold studs with the stainless boyes from @Extinct and was nearly home free until the last one snapped. Need to deal with that but waiting for some left hand bits to arrive tomorrow. (Yellow circle in the photo below)

 

I replace the studs with bolts on the oil pan. As far as the exhaust manifold, unlucky. That one being a through hole it probably be easiest to remove the manifold, centerpunch the stud, drill through it with a small drill, then progressively larger. As the hole gets larger and the bolt becomes a thin shell it will likely lose grip with the manifold and begin to rotate. You may even be able to collapse the shell with a sharp punch. If you have to drill it all the way out you can either heli-coil it or use a larger bolt size. Sometimes it is just easier and cheaper to replace the manifold.

 

OK cool, no downside? Why do you think they used studs to begin with. Seems like all bolts would be the easier way even for production's sake.

 

Whatever you do, DO NOT try to drill that stud out from the bottom. I made this very ugly mistake and it was friggin torture. As Extinct said, remove the exhaust manifold and work on a bench or find a used manifold to swap in.

 

But I really want to 😂

What happened? I haven't touched it yet since I'm working on other areas of the truck today but it looks like a pretty clean procedure.

 

A LH bit is worth a try, but it has very seldom worked for me. No downside to trying them though. If you can heat the casting it will help a lot.

 

@WaltNYC was right, drilled clean through the stud, no sweat, and then the next sized bit immediately snapped. So here we are. Could’ve saved two hours if I listened to his advice.

 

I have swapped the studs out for bolts on the timing cover. Just make sure you get the proper length.

 

Just got the same length as the other bolts. The holes are through holes so should be ok with that length yeah?

 

Measure twice, cut once. Obviously you don't want the new bolts to 'bottom out' but still want them to have as many threads to hold to as possible.