Hey guys, about to tear into my head gaskets and was wondering if you need to remove the lower bolts on the exhaust manifolds or just the ones at the head to remove them. I usually take them off completely anyway when doing a head gasket job but I remember doing one at some point without removing it from the flange. Thanks in advance.

 

depending on how strong you are you can remove the three lower nuts on the cat and then remove the heads with the manifold on it. Heres the trick though, heat the car up and then remove the nuts or else it will break off inside the manifold.

 

Now are you talking about the manifold flange studs will snap off? (If they are studs and not bolts, I don't have the truck here so I can't just run out and look, at the moment). Can I just heat them with a torch and then turn them out? Or is there anything sensitive to heat that's too close to that area? Mine actually look really clean, so I'm hoping that when I go to take them off they don't give me any trouble. (Wishful Thinking, I know!)

 

Will you have your heads resurfaced? You probably need to and will have to remove the manifold anyway. Just a thought. Also, a lot of the gasket kits come with new manifold gaskets that you will want to replace as well.

 

yeah, I'll have them resurfaced so I'm going to remove them completely. Thanks guys.

 

There is enough flex in the hangers to just unbolt them from the heads, and leave in place for removal of the heads. Thats what I did.

 

Yeah, thats what I meant to say. You can just remove the bolts and the manifold will swing out of the way. Thanks for the clarification.

 

So just unbolt from the heads and take the heads out and leave the manifold in place? That's what I was talking about, I think I've done one on a 4 cylinder car that I just unbolted it from the head and took it out. I wasn't sure with it being a V8 engine if I would have enough space from side to side to remove the heads AND be able to put them back in. Thanks for the input guys!

 

You got it. You don't have to remove the manifold. Just unbolt it from the head and slide it out of the way. Also, if I remember correctly RAVE has a specific pattern/order with which to remove the manifold bolts from the cylinder head. Just follow the RAVE instructions and you will be fine. Good luck.

 

Actually, I don't know what to do after the damage I found in the lifter valley. I put it in another thread but, one of the camshaft plain bearings actually fell out of its aluminum housing in the block itself. I guess that explains the tick I've had for a while. ( I think )
Anyway, waiting to hear back from Disco Mike. He asked what I planned to do next and I don't have the slightest clue what to do. I think that this same thing may have been causing my random power loss. It looks like it could have been getting stuck between the cam and the lifter and sticking it open from time to time. This seems like a definate possability considering the lifter had eaten about halfway through the bearing and was making contact with over half of that particular lobe on the cam.
What to do, What to do??? I don't know. Replace the engine, just the block, remove the junk bearing and drive it till it goes bang??? I don't know. It has been running like that for a long time now so I don't know if it would be okay to run it without it in there at all or not. Surprisingly, both the cam and lifter seem to have kept their hardened surfaces all the way around. Infact, they both look really good especially considering the milage. 145,000 miles currently. Though I'm not sure if the engine has been replaced???