Well it looks like my headers will have to wait.

A couple items in the house (frid, dishwasher, and a pressure tank for the well) all managed to crap out in one week.

So the funds are diminshed to the point where this may wait until things pick up at work.

So, in my attempts to loose the annoying noise, I looked and looked with a halogen light at the manifolds.

It's leaked on the right side since I bought it, but the tubes for the AIR all look good, the EGR looks good.

I notice on the passenger frame rail about midway along the manifold, there is some discoloration.

It almost has a pattern as if hot air was shooting across it kinda if that makes sense.

I started thinking (always dangerous) that maybe this is where the crack is?

I can't see much, I'd have to pull the fender liner and wheel to get my big head in there, but could that be a possiblity?

Could I use some JB to seal it up? Not going to try welding it, too much work.

Just looking to kill the tick, tick, tick I've gotten tired off.

Thanks for any input.

 

The stock manifolds are notorius for cracking on the passenger side, as you have already discovered. JB wel won't be strong enough, and I'd be worried about the heat that it will be exposed to. If you can get the manifold up and to me (I'll be in Staford this weekend working on my ranger mud truck), I can try to weld it up for ya. But the best bet is to get a set of the Motorsport shorty headers for your truck. The pair costs a little less than 1 of the stock manifolds, plus you won't need to mess with the rest of the exhaust system until you are ready. In other words they bolt in with no additional mods, unlike some of the other off-the-shelf shortys. Now if you can't afford to do that, run to the local junk yard and find you a decent shape passenger manifold and pull that. The Widewater pick-and-pull in Stafford has a few mid-late 90's trucks that you can pull the manifold off of, and that place it pretty cheap, you just need to bring your own tools.

 

Get a tube of exhaust repair putty. Press well into crack and spread thick. Manifold heat is no problem.