Tie your gaskets

[Frank S]

Sometimes you might find yourself having to hold several things in place at the same time but you were born with only 2 hands.
this becomes increasingly more difficult when having to hold a pair of exhaust gaskets in place while fitting a section of exhaust manifold on some diesel engines .
I was replacing the rear section only of the exhaust manifold because it was cracked in a couple of places but the rest of the manifold was fine. I saw no need to do like a dealer would do which would be to remove the entire exhaust system. To do this would have meant the EGR system the Turbo and all of the fuel injector lines would have to be removed. Then if they were replacing only 1 section the joint would have been heated so the damaged end could be removed then heated again to insert a new section while clamping it to a flat table and making sure the manifold was straight in alignment with the flanged all parallel. They say it is a 2 day job and the cost is $3800.00 plus parts.
I did the job from start to finish in 4 hours.
After removing the Air cleaner 1 EGR tube and 2 fuel injector lines I removed broke loose the 4 nuts holding the section to the head, then double nutted them and removed the studs removed the broken pieces and the Dutchman in the connection joint by using a die grinder cutting a grove in the piece still in the center section. then with a hammer and chisel broke the Dutchman out ( The term Dutchman to me is a broken bit inside of a coupling). Cleaned the inside of the connection then tried some adhesive to hold the gaskets on the new exhaust section, but with no hope of it holding them in place so I used sewing thread to tie them to the section. sewing thread is thin and will not interfere with the sealing of the gaskets.
to Install one of these you get 1 shot at it since there is a 0.001" to 0.005" thousandths interference fit. it either has to be pressed in or the outer part must be heated enough to allow a slip fit but not so hot that you will crack the cast iron when it cools. I heated the coupling slid the section in place and quickly screwed in a couple of the studs before the parts seized together.

[rebuilder1954]

Very slick, Frank!