Exhaust Manifold Gasket Leak

[Grizzly]

OK, after all the other bs I been dealing with and pretty much busted after $13K in repairs so far and off work for a month and a half, its been discovered that now I have an exhaust manifold gasket leak. (i havent yet determined where exactly)
How long can I put this off so I can go make some money or should I go rob a bank in a Killary Clinton mask and get it fixed NOW.
So far I've got new dpf filter, doc cleaned, 6 new injectors, fresh oil change, carrier bearing was shot, yadda yadda yadda.
So fix it?
Let it ride a while?
Redneck hack to hold me over?

[Rawze]

start by ensuring the torque on the turbo mounting bolts is 75 ft-lbs or so.

[Grizzly]

(02-24-2017 )Rawze Wrote:  start by ensuring the torque on the turbo mounting bolts is 75 ft-lbs or so.

Ok, checked the mounting bolts on the turbo and they are at least 75 ft lbs.
Sprayed everything down with water and the only spot I see blowing bubbles is at #5, top bolt. The metal gasket looks like the corner is bent out, but the bubble appear to be from in front of the gasket.

[Waterloo]

That seems kind of odd... Was the manifold off recently? Did you put the wrench to the bolt at #5 to ensure it is tight? You stated you checked the turbo mounting bolts, that is why I ask... It is kind of a bitch of a job to replace that gasket, as I am sure you know. But is something you could do in your driveway with some help removing the turbo, it is rather heavy. But then again, you may have to recalibrate the turbo actuator if you have to remove that to get the turbo off... I am not standing in front of my motor so I do not know for sure. If you have an Inline reader and Insite than no worries. The effects running with the leak, your boost will be messed up and mileage may suffer. Do you have a pyrometer on your truck?

[Magard]

Running a leaking manifold will eventually erode the manifold away to the point it won't seal even with a new gasket.

[Grizzly]

no work on that side other than radiator hoses, bottom one and one to the egr cooler. everything else was 6 injectors and new timing and metering actuators. no pyro gauge, yes i did check the bolt also along with the turbo mounting bolts as suggested by Rawze. I'll suffer the fuel mileage so long as I'm not going to mess anything else up in the process until I get some funds together again after all of this work and being off working this long.

[Waterloo]

I wonder if you had an extreme high heat issue and it damaged your manifold? When I had my in frame done, I had them check my exhaust manifold for warping, it passed that test, but the gasket was rather toasty in one spot, cannot remember which cylinder. My truck had a high heat incident prior to me purchasing, I discovered this when I eliminated the mandate and discovered my head was bad. It is a CM-871, wound up replacing the head with a new OEM along with everything else on the motor... And I mean just about everything. The old manifold stayed, but I did have them install new bolts and spacers along with the gasket, of course.

[Grizzly]

(02-26-2017 )Waterloo Wrote:  I wonder if you had an extreme high heat issue and it damaged your manifold? When I had my in frame done, I had them check my exhaust manifold for warping, it passed that test, but the gasket was rather toasty in one spot, cannot remember which cylinder. My truck had a high heat incident prior to me purchasing, I discovered this when I eliminated the mandate and discovered my head was bad. It is a CM-871, wound up replacing the head with a new OEM along with everything else on the motor... And I mean just about everything. The old manifold stayed, but I did have them install new bolts and spacers along with the gasket, of course.

Ok you have me wondering now. How this all began was crappy fuel mileage. I pulled and checked the fueling and timing actuators and found 3 worn/bad, I replaced them and when I started the truck it chugged black smoke. Shut it down and started asking about it. I was told by different people to let it run it'll do that. I let it run maybe a less than a minute, then maybe a minute or 2 again as it was choking out my neighborhood. Then once I think I got 4 or 5 minutes out of it but then I notice it looked like something was overheating under the hood (but not for sure) at the same time I got a Fuel Rail Pressure code on the dash and shut it down. At this point the DPF was black faced so it wouldn't start again anyway. That ended up up not cleanable and had 3 cracks in it. DOC was ok. Thats when I found it had 4 bad injectors and so I took it to the stealership to have all 6 put in, all new actuators, some other things they found and now this pops up. Before it was louder and today it was not as noticable to the ear, but that maybe because it was still cool as I was just idling with the pto kicked up. So now I'm wondering what else is going to follow this. UGH. Why only after the mandate delete did you discover the head being warped?

[Waterloo]

Your last question is key... The issues with the mandate masked the REAL issue with the motor, the bad head. These motors are a mess with this shi#t on them, I chased problems until the cows came home, and it cost me plenty. When I got rid of the mandate, I could finally start figuring out what was wrong with the motor, as I no longer had to play the games that are associated with all of the emission shi#t. This was two years ago, and the knowledge has only grown in that time period as we all work together to figure this crap out.

Long story... And it cost me in the hundreds of thousands of dollars when it is all added up... This is my seventh or eight truck I have owned, and I could have paid for all of those past trucks in cash with what I have in this one with lost revenues, purchase price and repairs.

Get rid of the mandate and FIX the truck. I did mine in my driveway, CM 871, it was nerve racking, but not difficult to do. If you want, PM me and shoot me your phone number.

Mike