1968 250S Head gasket replacement
 

Good day all,

I recently acquired a 1968 250S with, I believe, the M114 engine. It recently swallowed a whole bunch of coolant and I am working on pulling the head to investigate the situation with the head and gasket.

I'm almost ready to pull the head, however, I can not for the live of me get the exhaust pipes out of the manifold. Maybe I need to keep working it, but I've lots of penetrant and heat on it, but it won't budge. They have been together a long time.

Any suggestions? Do I need to just keep battling?

Any suggestions would be appreciated.

Is it possible to separate the manifold from the head, and take the head out? Then you will have more space to tackle and twist the manifold. Keep lubricating the manifold joints and nuts in the meantime.

Had difficulty with some seat hardware once, really stuck after 50 years. Definitely different animals but the solution was an impact. It was a screw head with regular, not philips head. I used all the usual tricks and finally after serious frustration had an idea to use a center punch on the outside most edge of the slot and strike it with a hammer in the direction I wanted to go. Finally it gave.

Maybe drill a small pit in the top of the bolt you want to budge and use the shock from a punch and hammer to "crack" it.

Good luck

There should be enough room to pull the manifolds off the head and to the side so you can remove the head. If it is really tight you can remove the bolt for the motor mount and raise the right side of the engine a little. I usually leave the manifolds in place when I pull heads. It is easier to pull the manifold off the header pipe after the head is off. Then you can put in new donuts and bolts to get a nice seal after the head is back on.

One more thing. You will probably have to remove the bracket from the exhaust to the transmission to be able to move the exhaust enough to get it out of the way.

Thanks for the follow up. I suspect the best advice will be to leave the exhaust alone and seperate the intake and exhaust from the head. It's all going to have to come apart at some point anyway.

Thanks everybody.

Jim.