awill110

Hey everyone! I purchased a Banks Torque Tube for my 2000 XJ and I have run into some serious difficulty getting it installed. I removed the stock manifold with out too much difficulty, but bolting everything up is proving difficult.

I got the header on and screwed in all the bolts for the intake part way. I slid the header on the dowels and the bolts. I am able to get to all of the bolts except for one. It is the one located on the bottom, second from the firewall. The tubes on the header prevent access to this bolt and my hands are small but not small enough to get far enough in to get a wrench on it. Any ideas or tricks to try?

The motor is still in the vehicle and I would prefer to not have to pull it out. That seems like way more work than it is worth.

Thanks!

Jonwebb

A ratchet with an extension and a u joint would probably work

awill110

Tried that but there is not enough room between the head of the bolt and the pipe. There is barely enough room to get an end wrench in there, but I can't reach far enough to get the wrench on the bolt.

I have removed the air box, PS pump, radiator and front cowl so that I have plenty of room. I have been fighting this for a while, so I figured I might as well pull out all the stops!

rklettke

so you can't get an open end/box wrench around it at all? I'm drinking and can't picture this correctly but I'm assuming you have tried the trick of attaching a seperate box end to the open end of the wrench that fits on the nut?, I usually use this method to get more leverage to break a bolt loose. I'm not sure how to say this more clearly lol... sorry...

Veeb0rg

Have you tried getting at it from the underside?

XJ Stryker

Just a thought!

Remove header again. Instal a different bolt that is a lil long. Lil loctite. With ou header install till it is tight. Cut the end of it off. Use it like stud. Put header back on and the but a nut on it? That is ofcourse if you cat find a stud too put in there.

N0t sure if it will work since i have not done the job but that is the route i would go.

USMCgunrock

I remember that bolt! I had a hard time with that installing my borla headers. Good thing I had a long offset box end that I used to reach it with by sticking my arm through the front set tubes. One tube on the back set was basically over that bolt. When I got it down as much, i used a crow's foot on an extension to tighten it up.

porphyry

I'm running into the same problem with my 99 Jeep TJ. I'm putting a Banks Revolver exhaust header and the angle of the header pipe is covering up the #1 bolt. I am going to try the above suggestions, but I'm wondering how I will be able to correctly set torque. Those things are finicky about torque specs. I know that much from a job a long time ago on the same TJ. If it works out well, I'd love to put one on my 96 XJ...

dysfunctionaljd

To get to that one I ended up going from underneath with a regular open end wrench. I couldn't get to it any other way than underneath.

98XJ40K

^^this. I had to get that bolt with a long open ended wrench from underneath. Took me about two hours to get it figured out and then tight.

porphyry

How did you set torque on the bolt? I would love to know...

98XJ40K

It was a rather long process of calibrating my hand to the "feel" of the correct torque on the other bolts and guessing when it was good. Key word there is guessing. It was impossible to get the torque wrench in that spot. I wish I had found a way to do it properly, if anyone comes up with one I would like to hear that as well.

JP93XJ

So was the header worth all that trouble ?

porphyry

Totally. I'd say a small gain in horsepower at 3,000RPM. Same at 2,000. The big issue was that my stock header on my TJ was completely cracked and was incredibly loud. I no longer have those problems. The design on the Jeep exhaust system is prone to cracking the header pipe, so I'm all too ready to go with a more expensive product that is backed by a long warranty.

I never did set torque, but I used the advice of an above poster and bolted it down till it felt right. Best part was that I got it right on the first try.