Manifold Repair on Hold.

Putting the Manifold Together.

The first thing that I had to do on the manifold, was to put the two halves together.
The manifold has to be tightened on the head before you tighten the two halves together.
I put some blue silicon on both sides of the gasket that goes between the two manifolds. It’s probably not necessary but I noticed that it was leaking so I put silicone on it.

It is going to be hard to get to these nuts that hold down one side of the manifold so I am going to snug it down just a little so when the I tighten the nut after putting it on the head it won’t have to turn the nut very far.

Installing the Manifolds.

Once the two parts were connected together, it was time to install the manifold in the van.
After struggling for a while trying to get the manifold bolted down I realized that the rear of the manifold was warped out of shape.
When I originally put this manifold on I had to cut out the last mounting guide hole to get the manifold on.

It is even worse now. There is a hold down that is supposed to span between the exhaust and intake ports to tighten them against the head.
This is the hold down.

I wasn’t able to get the hold down to work because the way the exhaust port has warped the hold down won’t fit on both manifolds.
I think this could possibly be what was causing the original problem.
It could be that I never got the manifold tight enough the first time.
Here is looking at it from the top. The hold down goes between the two manifolds to hold both down.

In this picture you can see that the exhaust manifold is too close to the intake manifold

The hold down is supposed to span the gap between the manifolds and sit on the flats you can see on the manifolds but the exhaust port has warped up and to the right so the hold down won’t fit.
I tried modifying the hold down but after a while I realized that even if I could get the manifolds tightened they would most likely leak and cause trouble because they are misaligned.

Order a New Exhaust Manifold.

I decided that I needed a new exhaust manifold so I removed and disassembled the manifolds.
I went into the house, got on the internet and ordered an exhaust manifold.
The only one I found was from Summit Racing and it won’t be shipped until 8/17 so I guess the manifold repair is now on hold.

Plans.

We are going to take a trip to Idaho next week and won’t be back until 7/19.

Talk to you later.