Yesterday afternoon while I was fixing a leaky tire I ran into a problem. I had my Bronco's rear wheels jacked up on jack stands, cranked up the engine, put her into drive that way rather than driving around four miles to allow the fix a flat to coat the entire inside of the tire I could just sit in the driveway, but about three miles into it my truck sounded like it backfired and after that I had small amounts of black smoke coming from under the hood. When I popped the hood to investigate, it appeared that the smoke was coming from where the exhaust headers meet the tailpipe. So far my best guess is that the engine backfired or something and when it did it blew out the gasket and is simply leaking some of the exhaust. But like I said that is my best guess, so if anybody else has any ideas on what else it might be please let me know.

 

How are your valve cover gaskets? They tend to be always leaking on to the exhaust manifolds. I really can't answer the backfire associated with black smoke. I would take a flashlight and look around top and underneath. You'll find out exactly where it is leaking from.

 

well, I took a look like you said and the valve cover gaskets seem to be fine. The people I bought the bronco from said they put a new engine in it last year and it only has about 20,000 miles on it so I would think that the gaskets for the valve covers would be ok. But I am almost possitive that the smoke is coming from where the headers and the tailpipe connect because they used the original exhaust and the gaskets back by the muffler where totally shot. My only question now is where would I go to get replacement gaskets?

 

where the pipe meets the manifolds there are no gaskets, its a flange type seal. you just tighten the nuts. if its the actual manifold gasket itself then you can get those at any auto parts store.