Rant: one thing leads to another....

MYBAD79

MYBAD79

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Mar 23, 2008
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sunny Florida
I removed the AC compressor and the dryer/hose assembly from my Mustang today... went really smooth.... I noticed the exhaust manifold had this silly heat shield and decided to remove it ... the warm air supply hose to the air filter housing is missing since I bought the car and there's no shortage of warm air here in Florida anyways....
Once the heat shield was gone I noticed this 4" long crack in the cast iron manifold. :twitch::twitch::twitch:

Needless to say the cast iron pot metal cannot be welded ... the crack cannot be fixed with some exhaust gum either (one of the previous owners tried)...

Good news is that I did not break any bolts :)

Once all the bolts were removed I pulled the manifold off and noticed there's no gasket :confused2::eek::bomb:

Bubba you suck !!!!

I always thought the engine was kinda loud :smash: :smash::footmouth:

Auto Zone manifold..... another $120 to what started as a simple AC repair...
 
One crack is >4" long and there's another crack on another one on the back side.... I think the one on the back side was causing most of the noise as that crack was not covered with JB weld style "stuff"....
One good thing that the heat shield did was holding the "gum" in place.... the 1/8" space between the manifold and the heat shield was pretty much filled with this JB weld crap....

I was debating getting another used manifold off a Ranger or Mustang (same part)..... but it's like $50 for a used one (15 years old) or 100 plus tax plus gasket for a new one.... I just got disgusted with it and chose the easy way out.... hopefully nothing else breaks when I put it back together tomorrow....
 
MYBAD79 said:
Once all the bolts were removed I pulled the manifold off and noticed there's no gasket :confused2::eek::bomb:
Click to expand...

Common practise, believe it or not. I believe the 81 Vette had none from the factory also.
 
MYBAD79 said:
Felpro MS92424 ($5.19 plus tax)
Click to expand...

For old PONTIAC engines outta the 60-70's?? ran them suckers for some 40 years and never used a pair, ever, not even for the long super stock cast iron things I had on my '61.....never had a leaking problem either, :clap::thumbs:
 
I bought the $5.19 gasket but I am now less confident about using it. I'll assemble it without gasket first and if it's not leaking the gasket will go back to the "zone"...

Got the manifold today but I spent over two hours fixing the passenger side engine mount. The rubber was compressed so that there was quiet some play between the two steel parts of the mount allowing the engine to move approximately 1/8" before the rubber donuts would restrict movement....

The mount is $74 at the zone :eek:

Removed it, welded two washers to it, reassembled.... as good as new :clap::clap::clap:
 
MYBAD79 said:
I bought the $5.19 gasket but I am now less confident about using it. I'll assemble it without gasket first and if it's not leaking the gasket will go back to the "zone"...
Click to expand...

Use the gasket. It certainly cannot hurt. My statement addresses the issue that many times they were not there stock. Using one cannot do any harm.
 
big2bird said:
Use the gasket. It certainly cannot hurt. My statement addresses the issue that many times they were not there stock. Using one cannot do any harm.
Click to expand...

I'll have to see how good I can actually clean the head surface - I have been scraping rust and crap for about ten minutes before it got dark today.... the project is going to continue tomorrow... :smash:
 
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