Anyone know about how much it will run me to get my exhaust manifold gasket changed? The place I had take a look at it quoted me $500 frickin dollars for a GASKET CHANGE, saying they will have to lift my engine and such, now unless I've been living on mars for a few decades, thats inscane. Now if I am completely wrong about that, how hard is it to do this yourself? Theres no way I'll pay $500 to fix an leak.

 

Anyone?

 

To fix the exhaust manifold to block gaskets, you have to pull the downpipe and turbos. The engine doesn't need to move. But pulling the dp, intake, y-pipe, turbos does take me a few hours, and a couple hours to put back together. Mostly depends if the dp/turbo/manifold studs have been removed/reinstalled in the not-too-distant past. The longer they've gone untouched, the more likely some will give you a hard time and/or break.

Dave

 

I don't have any issues with pulling parts, just the turbos. I pick the car back up on monday, and I'll attempt to go at it myself. I am sure I can take everything apart, it's the putting it back together part which is more difficult.

 

My experience with exhaust parts is always the opposite

How do you know this gasket needs changed? (Black soot?)

 

Well lets say its been a bad week for my FD. It started with a gap between my midpipe and downpipe. I choose to change both of them since they were origionally installed by the previous owner. After changing the parts I got a call from the mechanic telling me that there was another leak comming from the manifold. After he took it apart he told me that it was being caused by worn gaskets. I did a search and everything seemed to check out. And like I said he wanted $500 for the job and I thought that was crazy for fixing a leak. On top of that I have an oil leak comming from the turbo lines! I figure while I am changing the gaskets I can change all of the vaccum lines I can find and that pesky oil line and call it a day.

 

Nearly 5 months later, I finally decided to get this job started. I only have 4 of the bolts attaching the turbos still on. Two I can get to, but the other two are a bit tricky. I was wondering if there was an easier way to remove them. I highlighted the ones I am talking about in yellow:



I borrowed the picture from another member seeing as how everything is still attached to the engine.

-Neal

 

bump

 

10 mm boxed end wrench worked for me. I can't remember if my flxhead ratchet wrench fit in there or not on the rear turbo return line, it did work fine on the front turbo return line.