This weeks fun project, exhaust manifold

[Beast]

So I finally got around to fixing the blown exhaust manifold gasket on the M725 this week. It's been leaking for a while and has only been getting worse. So I finally made the time to get it swapped. I had a new gasket in stock in my parts stash so it was just getting it done.


Lucky for me all the studs came out without breaking off. I was trying to be careful to not break one since I didn't want to have to pull the head to drill and tap it. A couple gave me that feeling like they were going to break but I would just stop and work on another stud then come back to it and get it to move just a bit more. Doing that until it finally spun free.


Once the manifold was out, I cleaned it and sprayed it with the ceramic header paint and then decked all the mounting surfaces on the big belt sander I have. After baking it to cure the paint, I installed all new studs and nuts before putting a light coat of high temp sealant on the gaskets and then torqued the studs.


Everything sealed up great and sounds great. All in all it was not that bad of a job, it was just finding the extra time during my busy summer to get it done.

[brute4c]

Looks pretty!

[jeepdan]

Looks pretty nice Dave Glad that all of the fasteners came out OK.

When I first read the title, I was thinking "Oh no, cracked manifold". Glad that it wasn't.

[Barrman]

Nice work. Kind of neat to see a manifold without the “crack.” All of mine were cracked.

[Beast]

As loud as it was getting, I was beginning to wonder if it had a crack. Luckily I have a spare on another take out motor that is good as well. But found that #4 and #5 had completely blown out the bottom of the gasket. I was just lucky that in all the stuff I bought from Ron, that there was a spare exhaust manifold gasket and I didn't have to track one down. What's really funny is now that it's so quite, you can hear every rattle in the rear litter rack as you bump down the roads.

[Von]

What's really funny is now that it's so quite, you can hear every rattle in the rear litter rack as you bump down the roads.

LOL.
When I was having the exhaust put on mine after the 390FE swap the guy asked if I wanted to go loud or quiet. I said LOUD, I don't wanna hear the rest of the truck. I went quiet when I had the 350 in it and regretted it.

Your truck looks great. It even looks like it purrs.