My passenger side exhaust manifold on my 2001 SC 5.4L is leaking bad at the head. Dead of winter and it's inspection time too. Local garage I trust quoted $700 to replace given they don't run into problems.

Fortunately I have a heated garage, another vehicle to drive, and relatively good mechanical skills. I really don't have time to do the job but for that kind of cabbage for a truck with 143k on it, I'm gonna try it myself.

I know I will most likely run into broken studs. Any tips out there to keep me from

TIA.

 

Patience and lots of PB Blaster(penetrating lube)!!
Good Luck!

 

Do not put stock studs back in there,,,,unless you want to do this job again or your getting rid of the truck...lol
Get some stainless steel studs to put in there.
And if your manifold is messed up,,,it's probably cheaper to buy headers then the stock manifolds from Ford.
If you end up with headers,,you want to get stainless steel locking header bolts.

 

i think it could be a relatively easy job, i didn;t do mine my self but i do know that you want to make sure your manifold is straight before you bolt it back on. if its not you will break it. If its not straight you need to take it to a machine shop to have it plained. good luck

 

It really isn't a hard job, unless you break a stud. If the manifolds are in good shape use a fel-pro gasket, they are a 2 piece just like oem's and they are much thicker for a better seal.

 

It's not too hard of a job, but it is time consuming. I replaced mine last summer. 16 new studs, 16 new nuts, new gaskets, and a trip to a machine shop to machine the manifold surfaces was about $140

 

Okay, I went in last weekend to do the job. As some said, it was very time consuming.

1) Bought a dremel and a bunch of metal cutting blades (my new favorite tool). Basically had to cut every nut off as rust had gotten the best of them.

2) Had to cut the manifold off in peices to get to some of the nuts. Used a comination of a sawzall and the dremel to accomplish this.

3) Out of all the studs, 2 took a lot of coaxing to get off (PB, heat, more PB, more heat). I almost gave up but finally got them to loosen using a chisel.

4) One stud was broken off inside the head. The very front one. Looks like maybe it was broken all along. This is where the leak developed. The only way I could get to it with a drill was using one of those flexible drill shafts. Very carefully drilled a 7/64 then a 5/32 hole and was able to get it out with a #2 screw extractor. The beer tasted very good after that stud came out.

5) Cleaned everything up and reassembled with new studs, nuts, manifold, and a felpro gasket as had been suggested.

Not a pleasant job but it sure feels good to have saved all that money. I ended up spending about $100 in parts and maybe another $100 in tools I needed to get the job done.

Thanks for the suggestions.

 

apply pb blaster heavily then let it warm up. repeat this as much as possible. the heat will help the pb to penetrate better.

 

Now you know why they quoted you $700 I had a independent shop probably 7 years ago quote me something like $500 to do a plug change on my 5.4L, it was hard for me to tell them if you don't want to do the job just say so don't give me some ridiculous quote instead.