Been told I have an exhaust leak. Truck runs fine but a little noisy. I can see the source of the leak under the hood but it looks hard to get to.

What is an exhaust leak? Can a rookie like me fix one with the right tools and I guess a ladder to get under the hood?

Thanks.

J. Boggs

 

You have a either a small or large hole in either a gasket, or pipe in the exhaust system.

Yes a rookie can fix it.

Good Luck.

John

 

I think that the exhaust leak is on the right side of the motor just at the front of the head. Kinda hard to get to but from what I gather,all I've got to do is take all the bolts out, insert a new gasket and put it all back together. Is that all?

What if I leave it for ahwile?

Thanks.


J. Boggs

 

Sounds like a plan to me, you can put it off for a while, it will only get worse.

One way to check for a leak other that by listening is with your hand. Place your fingers (together) close to the area and you should be able to feel the leak, blowing on them.

Go for it,

John

 

I have twice fixed exhaust leaks in my 302, one was at the donut gasket where one of the nuts on the retaining bracket had worked it's way loose and then off after I had an exhaust shop fabricated new dual exhaust for me. This was simply a matter of replacing and tightening the nut. The other was a leak in the right side exhaust manifold gasket by #1 cylinder. This was relatively easy to fix as the exhaust manifold bolts came out without snapping or rounding. I simply replaced the gasket and the manifold bolts as the old ones were pretty crusty and I don't want to have one break or round off in the future. The manifold had only been on for a year and I believe that I should have had the manifold surfaced at a machine shop to prevent leakage at the gasket. The 390 I'm working on now is a different story. The design of the heads and manifolds on these engines makes the bolts prone to rusting and snapping when you try and remove them. This in fact happened to me and now I have the heads at a machine shop. If you get your bolts out successfully you might consider taking the manifolds to a machine shop to be checked for cracks and resurfaced (so that you don't have to do this again anytime soon) and get nice new bolts so that if you do you have a better chance of getting the bolts out whithout breaking anything. My shop is charging me $30 for resurfacing. If you do have a 360,390 FE motor I read that at the risk of burning your hand, trying to loosen the stubborn bolt with a running or hot engine works better. If you have a 300-6 ask someone else, that looks pretty complex for me. You might also consider finding out what torque spec is required for your exhaust manifold bolts and use that as well as checking later as I believe that with the heat and all they may loosen. It is quite satisfying to loose that annoying sound, as well as good for your engine.
Good luck,
BBtruck

 

 

I just repaired an exhaust leak on my 390. The first was both doughnuts and the other was the manifold gasket. I found the easiest way was to spray a little blaster or wd40 on the bolts and working them back and forth. I also found that if you will spray them while the engine is hot it penetrates the threads better.