haha, yah I’m just going to get it done myself, I could only imagine what they would charge at the dealer

 

Give yourself 1 1/2 days to replace the up pipes. As mentioned here before, realigning the baby’s butt is the hardest part. I found removing the bolts from the up pipes to the manifold worked the best as long as your installing bellowed up pipes. No matter how many times I tried with them loosely connected, I couldn’t get the baby’s butt lines up. You will cuss and get angry, but just step back and take a few minutes to yourself and try again. And while your in there, don’t forget to replace the o rings for the turbo.

 

Did you use Dorman or International pipes?

I used International and had literally none of those struggles. I left them loosely connected at the lower manifolds, and used a ratcheting strap looped around the collector, and tightened it up into place. Then I wiggled the collector around until the alignment peg dropped into the hole. I tightened the clamp up and tightened the bolts to the manifold and they've been fine since.

I pre-assembled both pipes to the collector and dropped the whole thing into place behind the motor and over the top of the transmission. Based on this, you can also remove the old pipes and collector at once. In other words, don't bother with the bolts that hold the old pipes to the collector. You have to use 3' of extensions and it's a huge PITA and waste of time. Just pull them all out as one piece. If yours are really bad, the pipes might fall out of the collector without any encouragement at all, as mine did.

I was doing a bunch of other work at the same time, so replacing the pipes was just another part of a month long project. Not sure how long it actually took me to do the job.

 

Andy, I think that the removal and installation of the up-pipes is subjective to a lot of things. Like you, I had little/no problems installing the Dorman up-pipes in a very similar fashion as you did and following the years of advice that was available to me.

The "difficulty" of mating the up-pipes to the turbo is only due to the fact that the installer is leaned over the engine (I was kinda kneeling in the drivers side battery bay) and getting our big and sometimes sore hands back there. For me, I used some bungee cords to hold the two pieces together which allowed me to use my hands to tighten the band clamp.

Installing the up pipes can easily be compared to something like installing a clutch. SkySkiJason can probably get the job done in a couple of hours with a break here and there, where as it would take me a week. Experience of having done the job before is very valuable in these situations.

Again like you I was doing a lot of other work while in there too like rebuilding the turbo. If I had to do just the up-pipes start to finish it would probably take 2 hours, maybe a bit less depending on how many times I stopped for a drink from my cold beer.

 

When you R&R'd collector with up pipes in place did you have your down pipe out? What did you fasten the other end of that strap to on the collector? I tried to do something like that but couldn't find any place to attach the other end. I found some old 2x pieces laying around and wedged them between the up pipe and the firewall to hold it in while I wiggled it into place. And I didn't find removing that driver's side up pipe hard at all with the 3' of extension, in fact it was one of the moves that went well for me.

 

I did pull the downpipe now that I think about it. I thought I was going to have to access the bolts that hold the pipe to the collector but I didn't. I do think that made the removal and installation easier. I should have included that in my post.

I looped the other end of the strap around the front passenger's side tow hook. The angle seemed to help it line up just right.

Sous is right though, it's really just a roll of the dice and your particular truck might fight you long and hard.

 

I used the dormans. Laying on top of the motor in the summer heat wasn’t that much fun. I had removed the downpipe while doing mine.

 

Is there any possibility that it may just need a new gasket? And I could loosen one bolt at a time and slide the gasket out and back in?

 

All of this info is gold! Thank you guys

 

There is no possibility of that whatsoever.

 

I'd say that one could possibly replace the doughnuts but I believe that they would leak too after a while and it wouldn't be as simple as you are asking. I would expect that you'd have to remove everything to do it and when you see what a bear that job is a once and done fix would be preferred.

 

Took me a solid 8-hours to put in my dorman up pipes, lots of cussing, cut up hands and one really long shower to get all the grease, soot, dirt and sweat off once done...