I havn't yet removed the silly pies for the bypass hose and the return for the heater core. Those things are really difficult to remove from my old intake. They have slight slots in them, but I have no tools that will grab into them and turn. What is the secret to removing those things?

Is there anywhere to get them on the cheap in new condition if mine are too marked up or I mark them up further?

Greg

ebay is where I got mine
http://cgi.ebay.com/ebaymotors/NOS-Mopar...sQ5fAccessories

acetylene torch & I have not tried this but I plan to & that is to melt some candle wax into the threads

Heat like said above to get them broke loose.

I assume heat on the intake and cool the pipe with an ice cube or something before attempting.

Shouldn't there be a socket like tool that fits those groves or something? If I reccall the last time I did this I was lucky enough to have some angle iron that fit the groves and strong enough to twist on. I don't scraps of metal like that where I'm at now but it might be worth my time to go find some as it comes in handy from time to time.

Do you think filing the groves open wide to accept a wrench handle or something with a bit more meat will be bad for it? Seems to seal on the flat of the pipe where the clamp will be and not the end anyways?

The idea is to heat them up and touch a candle to the outsides to get wax to melt into the threads. That does help to get them out. The wax penatrates better than most anything else and lubes also.

My solution was to pick up a piece of 1/8" flat iron that was about 1" wide and then cut it to 2" long. I used a 16 Oz precision insertion device and inserted it into the grove. Stuck a crescent on that and they turned out just fine. I had teflon'd them when I put them into the intake ~4 years ago so no heat required this time around. I used the same little flat iron to install them into the new intake, though the bypass nipple is hard to install with less than 180 degrees of turn that you can get on it. I cheated and stuffed a crescent in on the end of the flat iron pointing out from the nipple, then put a second crescent on the jaws of that guy so that I could turn it that exta 30 degrees to get a bite directly on the flat iron again. I'm contemplating next time just cutting a slot in a junk 1/2" socket with a cutoff wheel then welding the flat iron in place. A sufficiently big socket would wrap around the pipe or a sufficiently small socket would fit inside and not interfere and prevent the thing from slidding out of the slots and busting my knuckles so badly when it lets go from pushing at the wrong angles.

Once out, I cleaned them up and they looked great for having been through 3 previous intakes and 30 years of living in coolant.

Greg