5.3L Exhaust

[Danny Schaefer]

Recently I bought my grandson's 2000 Silverado 1500 (w/5.3L) and decided to change transmission filter.  I dropped the exhaust pipe and had a horrible time getting the nuts off.  Anyway, in bolting the exhaust pipe to the left manifold flange my son-in-law use the impact to tighten the nuts before I could stop him and have him torque them on.  Now I want to back off the nuts a little so that I can actually torque them at 37 pounds.  In doing this will the seal be ruined?

[CamGTP]

No. Just back one nut off at a time and torque it down. Do all 3 without breaking the seal and you are good.

 

[Danny Schaefer]

CamGTP:

 

Thanks for the comeback.  Will take your advice.  Was hoping I could do this w/o affecting this "crush" seal.  I had such a difficult time backing off these nuts.  By the time I got them off (I had to use a Dremel to grind one of them off) the threads of the nuts were rounded off and the studs had to be straightened out with a thread chaser to get them to where I could run the new nuts up.

[davester]

Those studs are the rare ones that I put high temp anti-seize compound on.  It makes getting them off much easier later.