Bummer - Bad luck here!

[wmoguy]

Well darnit! After hacking and rebuilding my new Y Pipe (which was a little deformed) I thought I'd be good to go with no more exhaust leakage.

WRONG!

The back two exhaust manifold gaskets on the passenger side are leaking.........

So my questions are:

- Is there a better (read: stronger) brand of gasket I can pick up quickly to replace these bad ones?

- How long do you think just replacing the passenger side gaskets will take start to finish? Naturally I leave in a few days for a hunting trip. I"m already pressed for time as is, now I gotta figure out when I can find time to fix this debacle!!

- Is there a loosen and tighten sequence I need to follow here? IIRC, torque spec is 35 lbs, correct?




WORST CASE scenario - lets say I flat out cant find time to fix this prior to the trip. Besides losing boost, and an annoying exhaust squeel (that also leaks a little soot on my firewall) am I potentially damaging anything if I don't get to it until after this trip?

 

[icanfixall]

The leaks wont harm anything but boost. Nothing available other than the stock metal gaskets. I use felpro only but others may chime in with what works for them. You might have a warped manifold too. If oil is dripping down over it that will cool that area. then it warps or cracks. Ebay has new ones available all the time too. Just need to search for them. Both the 6.9 and 7.3 use the same passenger side but... The drivers side is differant between the trucks and the vans....

 

[itsacrazyasian]

Dont buy a dorman manifold. I had one cracked and the damn thing was twisted out of the box. The Felpro steel gasket has worked just fine for me. I sprayed both sides with copper and torqued. Changing the gasket is easy. Doesnt take much to get the manifold bolts loose. Even with as much rust as my parts truck had they all came out easily. Took me 30 min a side.

 

[homelessduck]

If it's warped and you need manifolds I have an extra set you can have.

 

[Hydro-idi]

I have also had bad luck with dorman exhaust manifolds. The quality doesn't seem to be there. I had to replace mine on a gmc truck I used to own and when I pulled it out of the box, my straight edge teetered when I placed it on the mounting surface. It came with a really thick gasket so I went ahead and intalled it.....6 months later it blew the gasket.
Long story short, if the manifolds are in good shape, I would take them to a local machine shop and have them mill the mounting surface. Just make sure they don't take too much off.

 

[icanfixall]

When I built my engine I ported 4 manifolds and ran them thru a grinder called a Blanchard Grinder. It was really tuff setting them up in a special clamp but once they were tured up the magnetic table grabbed ahold and I did very small cuts to clean up and true the gasket surfaces. Worked fine too.

 

[dgr]

I recently saw an online Ford vendor that had new manifold in stock. Seems they were around 165. Darn if i cab remember who it was

 

[icanfixall]

This is what I found on ebay just now...
http://www.ebay.com/itm/Internation...=120987605289&pt=LH_DefaultDomain_100&vxp=mtr
There is exactly what you want for a truck... But be careful looking at the other examples. Some of them are clearly mismarked telling you this is for a truck when its clearly for a van. Only the passenger side fits both the trucks and the vans. The drivers side is differant between the trucks and vans. The trucks have a tight turn down at the rear end or the firewall. The vans turns down back up at the number 8 cylinder. It appears to have better flow too. To find the ebay listing just inter 7.3 exhaust manifold in the search item.

 

[ocnorb]

In a former life I worked at an exhaust shop. (Yearsssssss ago.) One of the tricks I learned was that some vehicles were better off without the gaskets. If the two surfaces are machined well it will seal perfectly and can move around as it expands and contracts. Not sure if it will work on an IDI though.

 

[subway]

Have you tried the simplest and cheapest option yet of tightening them for now. There might very well be more work involved but try the simple fix first.

 

[wmoguy]

Have you tried the simplest and cheapest option yet of tightening them for now. There might very well be more work involved but try the simple fix first.

Yep. No go on that.

I bought the felpro gasket set tonight. Possibly Wednesday night I will tackle this. Already sprayed Kroil on the bolts tonight. I'm hoping they come out easy since they were off exactly one year ago.

 

[wmoguy]

Well shoot! looks like the manifold is a bit warped. can't get a good seal out of it on the back cylinder, leaks out the bottom side.

I called the Ford dealer and he did a NATIONAL parts search and found ONE in Illinois. Guy told me "this part is obsolete"

Since I'm in a time crunch and peeps here think the Dorman brand (from Autozone) aren't so good, I'm going to drop mine off @ a local machine shop and see if they can flatten it out a bit for me. I really don't have time to hit the local pick and pulls to find one and hope it's also not warped.

Fingers crossed I get her back together before Thursday! I"ll cringe if I have to let my BIL pull this trailer up with his GMC for this trip!!

 

[itsacrazyasian]

the dorman one was worse than the one i took off my truck!

 

[wmoguy]

so happy! got it all back together. and no more leaks (fingers crossed)

I'd forgotten how quiet this thing is because that exhaust leak really was pretty noisy at highway speeds.

I'm guessing I've had a leak for some time, maybe ever since I replaced the turbo. I now build boost just off idle even when I drive like there's an egg under the go pedal.

Thx for the advice guys!

 

[OLDBULL8]

U-haul has both Left and Right on there techcenter ebay, $99 each. If anyone is interested.