Exhaust Leak is making me sick. HELP!!!
 

Three times I have taken the car to Meineike and they fix it everytime and the same day it starts leaking again. They change the gasket and call it good.

The leak is where the manifold meets the tongue that used to be for the cat.

It just have the two bolts and straight pipe. Aftere the first two feet of pipe there is a Resonator or a glass pack looking thing. Could that be the problem?

Would it be better to remove the glass pack and run a stright pipe to the muffler?

What are your suggestions?

This is driving me insane. Oh could it be the gasket material? Is there a special gasket needed for this?

Juan

Exhaust gaskets should be crush metal. Could it be your pre cat or some part is rusted through and thats why you have the leak?

your flanges could have warpped for over time causing weak points for the gaskets thus blowing gaskets i had a similar problem

I think this might be it.

How to fix this? HMMMM

I don,t have cats anymore and I don't want to spend a huge amount of money doing this.

Any ideas

No, I don't think is rusted through.

The leak goes away with a new gasket everytime they put a new one in.

But it comes back the same day after driving around 2 to three hours. Could it be the rtv? Should I let it sit longer and then start driving?

I have never had this problem with any other exhaust but who knows? The temps are so extreme with this cars that it may be something odd like that.

They are using the red rtv. Isn't there one that is for greater temps?

But again it could be the gasket material. I have not seen the gasket they use yet. This is the same gasket material used in piston engines right?

I mean Meineike should know what to use. Yes this is a DIY job but the first time I took it in it had exhaust leaks everywhere and they welded the entire system making it pretty tight and very nice.

Been there, and rtv will never last on a rotary exhaust. The flange on the exhaust manifold is probably warped. You have 2 options, #1 $$$ (most desirable) get a header #2 "cheap, almost free" (my choice because I was selling the car) remove the exhaust manifold, then remove the flange studs (if you're lucky) and block sand the flange smooth and flat with emery cloth, this worked awesome for me! (although I just removed the studs and did it under the car without removing the manifold)

our exhausts from what i've installed and removed (RB components mostly) do not use rtv or any soft gasket material. Even the stock replacement kit from mazda will provide you with nice thick metal crush gaskets that do not need any rtv.

Thanks for the quick comments guys.

I took it to Meineke again and:

this time the manager worked on it and guess what?

There were two gaskets in place there

Not only two but two incorrect ones.

He placed an O-Ring looking gasket iside the conector for what should be the cat pipe(no cat)

It sounds great now.

I hope it lasts more than a day.

I will post again in 2 days

It usually last no more than a day or two so if in two days is good I would say this is a done deal.

your using crappy gaskets or your flanges are banged up and out of wack