Minnesota Focus Owners Club

so i went over to rods(louis zerr) garage last week for my crower install, well we lacked a certain socked and one, only one, of the exhaust journal bolts stripped.

well we put it back together with the crower 2 intake cam and stock exhaust cam.
its wierd driving it, it runs fine, smooth, no issues, but with the stock exhaust cam it struggles to breath till about 4500 when the exhaust can actually start to expell some the air that is being let in by the crower.

but it still feels relatively quicker, my top end improved alot.
can't wait till wedsday when we get that pesky bolt out and swap in the other cam. mmmm.

breath easy little zetec...breath easy...

that bolt sucks. an impact driver should have easily got that out. I'm afriad that when we finally get it out something is stripped. When bolt like that is frozen in an aluminum head, it makes baby jesus cry.

OH that focker is coming out!

I stripped 2 of them when I was tryiny to take those out. One we pounded a smaller socket on and the other we had to use an angle grinder to cut the top of the bolt off, after we cut the head off it was only finger tight which I thought was kinda wierd.

soooo....
we tried the stripped bolt remover, not small enough, strike 1
we tried pounding a smaller socket on to see if that may work somehow, strike 2
then the last resort, we cut the top part off (left the lip over the journal), and proceeded to drill a hole for that magical easy out, this thing is hardened beyond imagination, nothing is stronger. except my muscles, which were strong enough to snap said easy out, leaving it buried in the hole we so cautiously drilled, it's not going anywhere. strike 3, we're outta there!
i've got a couple pics of the bolt, err, whats left of it still chillin in the head. they're kinda blurry though.

and rod, no worries man, we gave it our honest best shot, this, in all honesty, gives me an excuse to do something different, something that may take a while to achieve.
i want 2 things out of this vehicle, torque, and accel, it doesn't have to corner, it just has to go fast in a straight line

we used easy outs also and broke 2.

ouch.. that makes me worry about trying to replace my cams, I didn't actually clean my engine bay for about 3 years, I'm worried I'd run into the same issue.. sucks

-Nick

If its still in there I got money says my 5 years of experience on breaking bolts on anything and everything can get it out. Let me know if you want me to hit you up with some Propane/Map Gas Burn baby burn...next time try vise grips. WAY better than easy outs if used correctly.

Propane, oxy/acetalene is a no no around the oil soaked head. That and the fact that it is aluminum. we tried vise grips too. Because of the way the bolt is shaped the vice grips slip off easily. Plus we had to be mindful of getting any contaminants in the head (grindings and such)

ah well just use it as an excuse to get a new head, and rebuild it all outside of your car and next spring just drop the sucker in there.

of course thats a lot of money I don't have..

-Nick

hehe, thats what flea said. then i pointed out the head bolts (for those that don't know the head bolts are under the cams)

well.... if i get a ford racing head, does it come with journals?? prolly not? if so i'll get some heavy duty bits and let that bolt and journal have the worse time of their life

but seriously, if it comes with new journals i'll just buy that head, put the crowers in there, and swap it in. next spring of course.

I've got my old head(stock) and some journals less the 2 I cut off but you can have them or I'm gonna throw thm away. Let me know.

i'll snatch it off your hands, which journals dod you have problems with? mine was the end one on the exhaust cam towards the gear.

it was on the cam closest to the back of the car whick ever on that is and it was near the middle. We can get together this weekend if you want. Also I just changed my head, cams, and put on a turbo kit so tonight when I turn my car on for the first time in months if I fucked something up and brake the head that's on the car now you can't have th other head.