Manifold

[A G Wood]

Yes, WD40 is [or was] primarily a Water Displacing fluid and seems to have earned an undeserved [in my opinion] reputation as a releasing fluid...
As Dickie65 says there are much more potent releasing agents available. We used to have a product here called Uncle Sam we 
used- goodness knows what was in it but it smelt very strongly of amyl acetate and was most likely toxic, but it would release anything, you could actually see the rust/carbon running off the fastener in liquid form.

[Duncan Grimmond]

Obviously a retro-fit but if you assemble everything with copaslip grease dismantling next time is much easier.
Oh, and invest in the largest rubber mallet you can find!

[Terry McGrath]

I had a manifold recently which would not separate from the block. There was no way of telling what held it. I eventually resorted to brute force & higgerence. The centre stud had seized in the iron casting and it took a chunk of the block with it to the depth of the thread.
Fortunately it had not broken into the ports or the water jacket. I superglued the bit back in and plugged the tapped hole. It's since done many thousands of miles on my RF saloon.

[John Mason]

Re Terry McGrath’s contribution above. I find it strange that we all do bodges in desperation when we have no other repair available at the time. Repairs that we consider risky to say the least and we would never advise others to do as they had not proved to last and considered them as a something just to get me home. We then discover that they last for years.

John Mason.

[Steve Jones]

The last thing I'd call Terry is a 'bodger' but I understand what you're saying.

Mike Fitzmaurice told me some years ago that a day or so before an event, he found water in a cylinder of his blown racer. Taking the head off, he found that the water leak was through a rust spot on the side wall of a bore where it was particularly thin. He hadn't got time to change the block or whatever so cleaned the small hole out, dried it and filled it with epoxy. Next day he filed the repair down so that the piston rings cleared it, re-fitted the head and re-filled with water. Result, the 'repair' held. He went on to complete his season of events with that block with no further problems.

Steve

[Barry Townsend]

I'm relieved that it's not just me that has these problems. 
I was very afraid that I might damage the block but, for once, the Austin Gods were smiling on me (or were they smirking). a couple of the studs broke off rather than damaging the block.
I intended to do this work in February/|March time but glad I didn't leave it.

[John Mason]

Sorry Terry I did not intend to insult or offend you or anybody else but sometimes circumstances dictate that a bodge is all that can be done. My definition of a bodge. Repair that nobody else has thought of or tried. Or repairs nobody else thinks will work and that includes the bodger doing what I like to call the modification.

John Mason

[dickie65]

I have a vague recollection of drilling manifold studs having cut the ends off first,
This was a knacked garden shed engine my father gave me to dismantle when I was 15.
I have got a lot better at drilling studs out since then.

[Greig Smith]

Decades ago we had a cylinder head stud seize on Dad's '30 Triumph Super 7. It was the center stud in the aluminium Ricardo head. We tried the usual tricks of localised heat, tapping the top of the stud etc, but it was seized solid in the aluminium. Eventually I took an old 18 tooth hacksaw blade & carefully ground all the teeth off except the last one & I used this to 'pick' the asbestos out from between the 2 layers of copper until I had enough clearance to get the other end of the hacksaw blade into the gap & cut that offending stud off.

Thinking about it now... urk... Elfin Safety would have locked my parents up, but I didn't succumb to the asbestos and the stud got drilled out with the head on the drill press. The remaining threaded bit in the block just turned out the head. Not quite so sure I'd tackle that same job with such a cavalier attitude today, but I was about 13 at the time & did it while Dad was at work.

Aye
Greig