If your nuts have rusted to the point where they are now small and round, by
all means, PULL THE ENGINE.
I had a mechanic replace the exhaust gaskets on mine when I first bought it.
I was 16 years old and making $6.00/hr at this shop and paid them to do the
work....
Long story short they broke a stud. No big deal..... untill they broke a
titanium drill bit off deep inside my head....
Later that day they explain to me the problem and say "well the problem is,
you can't really drill out a drill bit...."
In the end I owed them nearly $700, and at no point did they replace
anything other than 8 bolts/studs/nuts and 4 exhaust gaskets.
It was a great way to ruin my summer. They can do damage in 2 hours, and it
took me more than 100 hours to pay it off.

This is when i started doing ALL my own work.
Pull the engine if it looks bad.

-Craig
'85GL turned WESTY
BOSTIG in the back.

On Tue, May 19, 2009 at 9:21 PM, Jeff Hartman
<jeffreyleehartman@gmail.com>wrote:

> I want to thank all of you for your responses. The images are really
> helpful
> too, and provide courage that there is some header hardware out there that
> actually looks worse than mine, and has still been removed using the
> techniques described.  I am now pondering what some of you have said about
> the advantage of just pulling the engine. It looks very tough to get to the
> top stud on the forward driver side head, without some additional working
> room.
> Thanks, Jeff Hartman
> Juneau, AK
> P.S. did I reply improperly, and mess up the way these were all nicely
> linked together?  It has been awhile since I posted in a chain.
>
> On Tue, May 19, 2009 at 3:30 PM, Dennis Haynes <d23haynes57@hotmail.com
> >wrote:
>
> > I agree. It does not make sense to pull the engine to do an exhaust.
> >
> > Dennis
> >
> > -----Original Message-----
> > From: Vanagon Mailing List [mailto:vanagon@gerry.vanagon.com] On Behalf
> Of
> > Ken Wilford
> > Sent: Tuesday, May 19, 2009 9:35 AM
> > To: vanagon@GERRY.VANAGON.COM
> > Subject: Re: Advice needed for replacing front and rear header pipes and
> > hardware
> >
> > Except if you are installing an S&S Header system.  You can put the
> > system on the engine but then it will not allow you to get the engine to
> > the bell housing of the transmission.  If you are doing one of these
> > install the engine or leave it installed and then do the exhaust in the
> > van.  I have done it both ways it I have never really found it that much
> > easier out of the van.
> >
> > Ken Wilford
> > John 3:16
> > www.vanagain.com
> >
> >
> > Benny boy wrote:
> > > Remove the engine, everything will be more easy and simple. Like Frank,
> i
> > > have been there to many time and no way i would do the job with the
> > engine
> > > still in!.
> > > http://www.benplace.com/gilles/gilles3.jpg
> > > http://www.benplace.com/syncro/syncro31.jpg
> > > http://www.benplace.com/syncro/syncro29.jpg
> > > http://www.benplace.com/head3/100_0007.jpg
> > >
> > > I can post 50 pictures.
> > >
> > > Ben
> > > http://www.benplace.com/
> > >
> > >
> >
>