In May KARR started squealing like a little pig every time I would start him up or turn on the air. Troy and I replaced both the AC compressor belt and the Serpentine belt because they were totally shot and squealing. It would seem however that KARR was not satisfied with just getting new belts...and still was demanding attention. The new belts needed to be tightened.
When we replaced the belts, we noticed I had a blown gasket on the exhaust manifold. I ordered new gaskets and we planned to replace them today, along with tightening the belts.
Belts are tightened.
We removed the rear exhaust manifold and cleaned both mating surfaces.
Here is the engine block with the rear exhaust manifold removed.
These exhaust manifolds I installed were after-market reproductions made by West Coast Fiero. The original exhaust manifolds had a built-in lip that mated with the y-pipe and formed a seal. The after-market ones do not have this lip and therefore needed a crush-style exhaust seal. The ones West Coast Fiero supplied with the exhaust manifolds were too large and we needed to find replacements. Unfortunately none of the automotive stores had the correct size. Hepper's Sport Center had some in stock for a Polaris that were the correct size. Who would have guessed?
Next we removed the front exhaust manifold.
We had to add some penetrant to loosen up the bolts.
While this was soaking, I took a look around at the under carriage and noticed the coolant line brackets were in severe need of replacement. There are four brackets but I only got pictures of three of them because I noticed the rear manifold had actually cracked and it literally stopped me in my tracks.
Both the rear and front exhaust manifolds had cracked in the same spot. Bad news for KARR, who will not be going anywhere today. Troy and I believe that the over-sized crush-style exhaust seals are to blame for putting excess pressure on the exhaust manifold.
We took the exhaust manifolds over to Roger at Quality Welding to see if he could repair them. He was able to, but unfortunately it was not until the next week. Here are the repaired manifolds.
The front manifold needed to have a spacer made to go behind the crush-style exhaust seal. Troy had this fabricated at Totally Tubular.
With the fabricated spacer, Troy was able to reinstall the front manifold.
KARR sounds much quieter but his slowly-deteriorating muffler noise is all that much more annoying now. Time for a new exhaust setup.
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