Well, I get to practice whatever method soon. The motor on my Suburban is a 1986 Corvette TPI. Yeah, they packed things in pretty tight. Anyway, I'm disassembling the tubes and plenum so I can make EGR blockoff plates and do some general cleanup. Aluminum intake manifold, aluminum tubes and plenum. Steel bolts driven with a Torx bit. I've already snapped the head of a regular bolt on the thermostat housing. That bolt was pretty fused in there. No problem, plenty of room to drill and tap.
I removed the passenger tubes and the plenum. I went to remove the drivers tubes. Wouldn't you know it. All the bolts came out except for the drivers outer rear bolt. The Torx stripped in that one. Pretty tight fit.I mean, even the bolt that you have to detach from inside with the long bit ACROSS the intake manifold came out! Oh well, I should have enough room to drill the head off the bolt to remove the tubes.
After that, I should have enough shank to use Vice Grips to remove the rest of the bolt. If that doesn't work, I'll need to decide to either drill and tap the holes in the manifold where it sits, or remove the manifold to do the work on a bench. Since I have most of the intake disassembled and I like the idea of putting the intake in the soup and peeking in to the lifter valley to see how well the previous owner took care of the motor, I'm leaning towards removing the whole thing. But it will start with removing the tubes so I can get to the center intake manifold bolts!
