Today - I decided I am going to fix the exhaust leak that I can hear on my drivers side. My assumption is the leak is occurring where the manifold meets the front pipe, easy enough

Began by hitting the nuts with some PB Blaster.

Drivers side, two nuts came off and one stud. The one stud that came out looked stripped.

Well, since I have the drivers side off, why not just pull the whole front pipe off?

Passenger side, two nuts came off and broke off one stud

Well ****, I am this far might as well go the whole way...

Both studs broke on the flange that meets the muffler

Summary...one exhaust manifold stud broken, one stripped, both flange studs broke. It's Miller time!! (or rather some strong IPA)

I will probably replace the flange studs with regular nuts and bolts, just need to drill out the studs.

For the manifold, I can order (2) new studs from AB.

The challenge I have, should I get the vice grips and go after the broken stud on the passenger side or cut it off and drill it out (I have short arms)

The part of me that wants to spend money on little HP returns, is thinking of going catless and doing a full magnaflow system let me drink my IPA and think that one over...

 

update

I ordered some new set of studs for the exhaust manifold from ebay.

Today I am going to get the vice grips and take a shot at getting the broken stud out from the passenger side and going to drill out the broken studs on the flange.

 

Glad to see another IPA man. Whatcha drinking?

Fair warning, catless is a $10,000 federal fine in the US. also these engines are stupid loud without cats. Ask me how I know.

That said, the Magnaflow universal weld in cats are pretty solid. I've used them a few times and will be going back to them when I put cats back on my Disco.

 

The IPA I have been drinking of late is Pyramid's Outburst Imperial IPA 8.5% The other IPA's I like are not sold (to the best of my knowledge) commercially.

For catless, I live in a location where I don't have to worry about emissions testing. I probably will not invest in a new exhaust system as there is really nothing wrong with the existing but, I like to dream.

 

update

Got the stud out of the passenger side manifold rather easy, I ended up grabbing a nut from one of the other studs, put it on the exposed threads and tighten the hell out of it. Then I loosened it up and repeated the procedure one more time. Second time around, when I loosened it up, the stud came with it!!

Drilled out the flange studs, this actually took me a couple hours...First I used my Dremmel to cut off the left over threads and head of the stud. Then I drilled it out using (4) different drill bits (small to large). Just got back from the hardware store with new flange bolt and nuts. The OEM ones suck ***.

Also, my gaskets arrived today from Lucky8, just need my OEM manifold studs and nuts to arrive and I can button Tricky Dick back together.

 

Never had that one. Pretty good? Ill have to see if I can find it to check it out.

Emissions testing or not the fine can be issued by a run if the mill police officer through both a visual check as well as a sniff test. I'm not in an emissions test state either but I'm still putting mine back on to be safe.

I definitely understand liking to dream. As far as exhaust goes, rest easy knowing that unless you go as far as getting long tube headers there's no change AT ALL to MPGs. I would know, I've had meaty a dozen different setups on my Disco. That said, a little freer flowing muffler and the high flow cats did seem to give me a small bump in throttle response. Nothing like the long tubes though, and for only a couple hundred bucks... You can't go wrong.

 

If anyone is wondering...It is freaking loud running the truck with just exhaust manifolds

I about crapped myself first time I turned it over

 

Yea I know. Trust me. If you want it to sound like a v8 just go with the magnaflow y pipe. I took my old y pipe to the scrap yard and got $120 for the old cats and used it towards the new y pipe. It has that v8 sound but doesn't sound like a teenager.

 

update and it is not good...

Went to install the new studs tonight and my old methods failed me...

None of my attempts would tighten up the studs and because I am thick headed, I broke another stud and bent it with no hopes of backing it out. That means I need to cut, drill, and tap the bitch. Going to be a fun weekend and you guys should start buying Harbor Freight stock.

 

That's not good for the ole' tricky dicky. I used some copper anti seize when I put mine back together and had to end up using some high temp bolts made for exhaust to bolt my y pipe up to my muffler. Got em from auto zone pretty cheap. If you got the manifolds off ( which I'm sure you do) I would clean the threads out on each hole and when you do put the studs in, just snug them up. Don't tighten them too bad. I did the tightening when I put the y pipe on and so far no leaks on the panty dropper