1999 ford-E-350 conversion box truck
85,000 miles on a 5.4

Hi all,
My exhaust manifold gasket on the passerger-side seems to be leaking. One of the studs has broken off closest to the engine cover. looks like its flush with the manifold and not the head. With the engine cover off, i can see a small amount of space inbetween the head and manifold (aprox 1/16" - 1/8") and can press on the gasket with movement. It also seems like the truck in lagging with power lately so im guessing no back re because of the leak. My concern is, there doesn't seem to be much room in there at all to work especially if i break an exhaust bolt in the process ( i will spay everything the night before with penetrating oil). Thankfully its just the passenger side because the driver-side looks far more difficult. Im hoping that theres an easier way to change the gasket other than what im seeing. I really hope the engine doesn't need to be pulled to do this. Will removing the engine mounts help? Is there any other way? Should i buy a whole new manifold or use the old?

Thanks in advance

 

it shouldn't be too hard to pull your manifold off, clean/inspect the surfaces, and if ok, replace the gasket and be on your way
replacing the manifold itself would be totally unnecessary unless its cracked or otherwise screwed up

 

Ford did change the design of thw exhaust manifold thru the years to try and prevent heat stress cracks, so do a good inspection of yours. Also, check it for flatness where it mates to the cylinder head, it may be warped and that is what caused the gasket to fail, or it failed because of the broken bolt. If the manifold looks good & is flat, then as mentioned previously, no need to replace it.

While it is not hard to replace the manifold, the hard part is dealing with the potentialy frozen bolts. All of the bolts need to be present, if one is broken, then not drilling and/or removing the broken part and replacing it is a recipe for gasket failure.

You might make sure you ge the latest design manifold mounting bolts & washers as they went thru some redesign over the years to try and allow the exhaust manifold some room to "grow' as it heats up under heavy loads.

Do it right once, and you should ever have to do it again until the engine is flat worn out!

David

 

Im going to do like you said and inspect it once again and check to see if its maybe warped or cracked. Also maybe its not a difficult as im thinking from responses ive seen here. I was looking at it with the hood closed and just from the dog house side so I guess i wasn't realizing that there should be plenty of access from the hood side too. I spoke to my cousin today who is a ford mechanic and he said he does them all the time and that hes coming over this sat to help me out. I hope he does but he has said that before with other vehicles and then never showed up lol. Will check again tomorrow after work and then take some pictures of where im seeing that gap which is leading me to believe that it might be warped where the bolt broke off. I can hear its louder than usual when driving and think i might hear an air rush or something. Do you know where i could find those re-designed bolts? I see the bolt kits on rock auto but not sure if thats it. Is felpro gaskets ok for this?
Thanks for the valuable incite.

 

Here are those pics. I know its kinda hard to see but there is a gap at the top where that bolt broke off and i think thats the leak. Im gonna try and get a head start on it and begin changing it tomorrow. Gonna spay everything down now. It appears to be warped a touch on that end as well.

Ford e350 pictures by Mikey_23_ny1 - Photobucket

 

You are in for quite a job, those fasteners are corroded pretty bad. I suspect you will break most of them, then have to drill out and chase/tap. Not much fun at all...

 

start with the best penetrating oil you can get your hands on. PB blaster or liquid wrench are both decent, with some of the hard-to-find options being even better. someone recently recomended Kroil to me, its only available from the manufacturers website, and only to businesses, so may not be practical for a guy who needs it yesterday. but its good stuff, its helped me get a few things that i was sure i would break

 

I sprayed it down earlier with some pb blaster and gonna spray again tomorrow. Im kinda expecting a few to break but gonna do whatever possible to prevent it. I have the torch ready too before i even try turning them out. Torch and spray a couple of times first before turning. If they do break, what size drill bits and extractor or taps would be advised to use? I have mostly all tools being that im a contractor but dont have a real close right angle (i dont think my Milwaukee is gonna fit) so i plan on picking up a pneumatic right angle just encase. I also ordered a new manifold that i will have tomorrow encase that existing one is cracked or warped in any way. For $75 its worth it to me.
If it rains here on Long Island tom, gonna spay a few more times and give it a go on fri.

 

for drilling/tapping them out, i would start with about an 1/8" bit, then work your way up from there. i would advise avoiding easy-outs, because (1) their name is deceptive, and (2), if they break, you're really screwed trying to get this thing out of your head!! if you have the idea that one of the bolts is likely to start turning, one trick i learned is to use a self-tapping sheet metal screw, with the benefit that if the screw turns, you don't break a drill bit and screw yourself, you merely screw the broken bolt deeper in, and of course, once it turns in, then an easy out is an option, but NEVER until it turns by itself.
as you know, be VERY careful to avoid breaking drill bits, as a broken bit is a disaster to remove.
anyway, once you get your pilot hole, go up a couple sizes, then work the smaller size sideways if/as needed to get centered on the bolt. when doing so, always use a smaller bit than your overall hole size, so if it breaks you won't have much trouble extracting it. anyway, keep going up in size till you start seeing the head casting around the sides of your hole, once you're there, start trying to pick out the super-thin remains of the old bolt. often, it'll shrink down a little and easily spin out at this point. more penetrating oil and hot-cold cycles are likely to help. if it won't budge, start by picking out the first couple threads, then get to work with a tap. its easy to spend an hour plus on a single bolt that has to be treated in this way, but it beats having to pull a head off!

 

I'll add that sometimes when working on the engine from inside its easier to remove the seats, one or both depending on your task. Four bolts each seat base and they're out. This assumes you don't have one of those floor-bolted center storage unit/desk combo's unless it too removes easily.

Just an idea---maybe it'll give you a bit more working room. Hope this goes easy for you!

 

Thank you very much. I plan to buy the better quality drill bits now so that theres less of a chance of breaking. Ive broken a thousand drill bits before so i know how easy they break (especially the 1/8 uhh) An hour a broken bolt would be fine with me if thats the extent of it lol.. were gonna have to see. I suppose if it turns out to be a complete disaster, i could remove the head and fix that darn oil leak in the back pass side. Its been leaking since 02 when i bought the truck.

 

Its a gr8 idea actually. That was the first thing that crossed my mind when i was assessing the damages.
Thanks

 

I have an 85, but when I was replacing the gaskets, it looked as if a few of the bolt on mine would snap as well. I had some other things to do, so decided to go ahead and drop the tranny and pull the motor <7.5>. Got it out, and every one of them turned loose with no breaking whatsoever.

So hope that your run goes good, and I will second the seat removal. Opens up the rear area nice besides the dog house.

 

Thanks, yeah im hoping thats they all come out easily like yours. I was out there for about an hour before. I pulled the seat out and disconnected the collector (think thats what its called) from the manifold with ease. It started raining so gonna have a go at those bolts tomorrow. At least they have been soaking in pb blaster for over a day now. I started ou the truck briefly before and i had a flood of pb blaster dripping out of the tail-pipe.

 

Wow, it was a heck of a job! Got the new manifold installed though
All the 4 nuts at the top were all rusted badly so i broke out the dremel and cut each nut off of the studs. The bottoms were in better shape so i was able to heat and remove with no major issues. I disconnected the transmission and engine mounts and jacked the motor up quite a bit. finally was able to get out the old manifold and used a stud removal tool to get out the remaining studs with heat of course. I got every stud out without any breakage which made me very happy. Glad i got that done but tomorrow gotta clean everything up and put the seat back in and wheel back on. Also, the vacuum line connections are shot next to the pass side of the dog house so gotta fix those. The rubber hose elbow things are all falling apart pretty bad. Gonna change out the transmission fluid and filter tomorrow too. Mercon fluid correct? or mercon v?
Thanks