Exhaust leak

garagedude · Post by **garagedude** » Sun Jul 08, 2007 8:45 pm

I have a stock 84 with factory exhaust. I have an exhaust manifold leaking. I think its on the bottom of #6 which is in the back. It really is annoying to hear it. Would you put up with it, or try to remove the manifold bolts. I've heard they will break off really easy. If they break off, that would mean pulling the motor to fix them. What about cutting them with a cut-off tool then removing the manifolds, then getting the rest of the bolts out? I would put headers back on.

Paul · Post by **Paul** » Sun Jul 08, 2007 10:48 pm

personally i hate exhaust leaks, you can lose power, and the noises drive you crazy, not to mention i have seen instances where it caused exhaust valve seats to get messed up when leaking too close to the ports, but chances are if you try to removing them some could break off, its becasue when you heat a bolt and it cools it tempers, it you decide to cut them and try to remove them then make sure you have a good heat source like a propane torch as this will sometimes help in the removal, personally i would not cut them i would try to heat then remove, but make sure there is no fuel leaks in the engine compartment and be carefull whats in the line of the heat if you try heating them to remove, you might find it easier to remove them with the engine warm, or at least to break the bolts loose, provided you are carefull not to burn yourself when loosening them, in past practices i have found heat does help, but it does not assure that they will come out without breaking..... you just gotta hope they dont....... but if you cut them then try to remove, you will find owning a propane torch might be usefull....

Paul · Post by **Paul** » Sun Jul 08, 2007 10:53 pm

i know on my 2.9 i had the bolt flange where the manifolds bolted to the y tube break off and it sounded just like it was at the rear cylinder @ first, that was the passenger side so i rigged it and sealed it up but always had a slight leak which i didnt find out untill i did the 4.0 upgrade that the inner bolt on the drivers side had rusted out of the threads in the manifold and the leak was on that side in high rpms, used to drive me crazy. even made it miss in higher rpm ranges

CraigK · Post by **CraigK** » Mon Jul 09, 2007 4:54 am

paul

I currently have a severe exhaust leak on my '87 B2, as you described, at the joint connecting the manifold to the Y-pipe. It is on both sides, but far worse on the passenger side, where it appears that the lower flange has rusted right off. How did you "rig it and seal it up"? It's damn tight in that location - very hard to get to. I'm considering buying and using one of those split flanges to attempt to reseal this joint (there is apparently no gasket at this joint). I'd appreciate any input from anyone on how they fixed this CHEAPLY. (No headers yet!) Thanks.

garagedude
You might want to check to make sure your leak really is the manifold to engine gasket, as the manifold to pipe joint down lower seems to be problematic, and might appear sorta like a leak at the rear of the engine.

Craig

Paul · Post by **Paul** » Tue Jul 10, 2007 7:22 pm

well mine broke on the manifold side not the y pipe, the manifold bolt hole broke out, i cut the inner fender out on the passengerfe side so i had room to get to it, then i used a bot with a washer and took a large hose clamp and wrapped around it to hold the bolt in place and then tightened the heck out of the nut and bolt i had run in there but it sounds like your saying your problem is the y pipe, if its the y pipe then you will probably have to replace the pipeunless you can slide it down and reweld the broken portion of the flange, or possibly try cutting the y pipe down low and sliding the flange back and off and finding a header flange for it, ....... as you said there is no gasket there, it has the tapered end on the manifold, which was designed to eleviate the donut gasket so there is no more than metal to metal in that application, but yes its a real pain to get too, had to remove tire, cut out inner fender flare, and keep fighting with it till it was sealed, one reason i liked the 4.0 upgrade, it sits about 2 inches higher and actually is over the frame now, was really easy to put back together ......... but that was one of my reasons for the 4.0 upgrade, that along with the fact the 2.9i motor finally blew up on me, but with 200,000 plus miles on it,

i say it did all right before it went.... LOL......

Paul · Post by **Paul** » Tue Jul 10, 2007 7:45 pm

another option depending on the year, mine was a 1989 early model with the Dana 28 front end, i found that when i changed my 2.9 motor out for the 4.0 motor, the 4.0 had the same y pipe, which my 4.0 came from a 1991 model ford explorer built in november of 1990...... try looking here

http://www.lmctruck.com/icatalog/fr/t.asp?page=44

i believe the exhaust stuiff is on page 44
you might check there, not sure if you will find anything that will help.

http://www.lmctruck.com/icatalog/fr/t.asp?page=0

thisd is the cover page and should give acces to the other pages