Is this what a broken head stud looks like?
 

Finally mustered up the balls to do my first valve adjustment, and I was doing great until I got the valve covers off...
Passenger side, this little guy comes out along with a hand full of oil. Obviously sheared off and even more obviously not supposed to be falling out. I'm assuming its a broken headstud but not positive.
So basically, what now?http://photos-c.ak.facebook.com/phot...77714_4925.jpg
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In the first picutre, the thing behind the threaded chunk came out, too.

You are correct. That is a broken head stud. The allen bolt threads onto the stud.
I had all of my head studs replaced even though only one was broken.
When I posted about my head studs being broken a few people said not to worry about it.

Ouch, sorry about the news:(

I would not drive it because I'm sure there are additional studs (if they have not already) might be ready to go.

You might cause additional driving might cause additional damage and stress on the cylinder that is only be held on by three studs.

Sorry to hear that.

Just curious - did you hear or feel any symptoms before the stud fell out?

Three of my heads studs came loose a few years ago and I replaced the engine and sold the old one to a guy to be rebuilt which helped defray the cost...

I cannot single out a single event, or sound to which I would attribute to it breaking, no. I was goofing off last weekend and did not have any suspicion whatsoever af any maladies. Slight valve tap on drivers side prompted the valve adjustment, and these parts literally fell out of the passenger side valve cover.
The only thing I've seen or noticed was a dramatic increase of oil leak on the passanger side the last couple weeks, which also coincided with cooler fall temperatures up here in WI.
So basically no, I had no idea...

Did the rest of that crap come out of your car as well?

And with regards to the leak, it appears to have been the valve covers, nothing abnormal up by the cylinders...

That is the valve cover hardware, and also some heater duct hose shards, I removed the ducting from the heat exchanger up through the sheet metal and it more or less dissintigrated. Outside of the headstud and allen bolt there was nothing abnormal.

please tell us what year car this is

sorry about your discovery. i still havent done my valve adjustment because, im afraid :-)

the car is a 1980, 188,670 miles. The last tuneup was April of '07 and that is the last time the valve covers were off.
I am the 3rd owner, first owner had it for 25 years down in Santa Barbara, CA, second owner had it for a couple, and I picked it up last year. Overall, it seems to have been well taken care of, I was told the motor had been resealed, and it didn't leak a drop until I moved out of CA to WI, I don't know if it was just the extreme cold or not driving it hardly at all last winter, but this last year has been a little rougher than last- fuel pump failure in July, wiring harness was melted and gone, engine wiring harness melted in the same episode, and then this... Still love the thing to death, though.

Also, I've been putting the valve adjustment off for several months as well. And then I decided just to do it. And now I'm glad I did, because it would have been spring tune up before I would have found out about this, and that is 4-5 autocross events. The motor did seem to run fine, though- how detrimental is one broken stud, really?

It's hard to determine how bad it is. If it's not leaking exhaust out the seam of the cylinder head then it's probably not doing much damage. If it is leaking it will erode the top of the cylinder and the face of the head. A small amount of erosion can be taken off by a machine shop. A larger amount will ruin the cylinder and/or head. You have to be the judge.

-Andy

I've never noticed an exhaust leak, but I will take an extremely critical look before pushing it again. One of the guys I autocross with has a 79 RoW, and he actually has a broken headstud as well, but he's been heading out.
I was more or less planning on rebuilding the motor in the next year or two anyway, so we'll take a look at this and assess how it affects priorities and other projects... =\

I guess I should rephrase and ask a question-
I've never noticed smoke or burning oil coming out of the cylinder head, and I have spent a good amount of time under the car with it running, looking for this illustrious oil leak (2 qts. in 2 weeks=massive stains in the parents' driveway- they no longer love the 911 as much.) Are we looking for smoke, or just clean escaping gasses?

And also a question about the original stud itself, I thought these broke because of rust/corrosion? Or did they just get brittle with heat treatment? I've seen plenty of these threads come up before about them and of course never thought it would actually happen...

Welcome to the club. It's a sad day when you see these drop out when you take off your valve covers. I had four come out, two on each side. I never drove it once I realized what I had. Most guys say one broken isn't a real big deal.

I used this "Opportunity" to completely rebuild the motor in my 87. It was a great winter project and I learned a ton about my car.

What part of WI are you in?

Good luck
Brian

Yeah, I'm looking forward to the opportunity to rebuild as well, just a little sooner than I'd wanted. This winter would have been great to do it, but my fun money got chewed up by my little wiring mishap over summer.

I'm in Eau Claire, WI, about 2 hours east of Minneapolis and 3hrs west of Madison/Milwaukee areas, so pretty much as far as possible from any Pelicans in either direction as far as I know. =(

does anyone know how much it costs to replace the headstuds? ive searched and posted the question before but have not found an answer.

Wait ... is that an intake or exhaust stud?

Just curious, did you mean to say that the broken chunk of head stud came out SEPARATE and DISCONNECTED from the Allen barrel nut? I cannot imagine that the stud would have snapped and then the Allen nut unscrewed itself from the broken stud fragment or that the nut came loose and then the stud broke. This could have happened some time ago, of course. Possibly, in April of '07 the mechanic saw the broken stud, removed the barrel nut and then put everything back in place. Then he forgot about it?

The broken head stud does not come into contact with oil, so it is not responsible for your oil consumption. Unless the reduced tension on that cylinder corner has slightly warped the valve cover. I would try the new silicone valve cover gaskets to stop that leak for now.

By the way, after 188,670 miles, that engine owes you nothing. If you only have one broken stud, I would consider that to be very fortunate in the life of the engine.

You can rebuild the top end and go for another 188,000 miles.

Good Luck,
Mark