Exhaust Manifold Gasket
By John
Tuesday, March 08, 2005
Having arrived for the hastily-arranged MOT after finding it had run out 4 days ago ( luckily the TIV isn't my daily runner ) I could hear a ticking noise coming from the engine. During the emissions test the MOT guy had been holding a rag into one of the exhaust pipes in an effort to get a good reading. He told me that with the large diameter of the pipes on TVRs the equipment struggled to get a representative reading. I smiled at him, he was one of those people who like you to know how knowledgable they are..."just pass the bloody thing"... I thought. By now the engine sounded like a Massey Ferguson. Luckily the car passed with just an "advisory" on the manifold leak. Having got her safely home what to do now ???
First, I went out into the garage to suss out whether it was a job I could tackle myself. Knowing that this was likely to cost £200-300 at a garage ( parts are cheap but the labour is 2hrs approx per side ) I rang Julian at Joospeed for advice ( thanks again Joolz ). He said it wasn't a techically difficult job but that some of the bolt were a right tw*t to get to. The other problem I found was I didn't have the right spanners ! You need a small 9/16th AF ring spanner and a combination 9/16th AF spanner. I duly ordered a set of AF combination spanners ( amazon.co.uk of all places - £11.00 !). I also ordered the gaskets, plus some new bolts with spring washers from Harrogate H.C. as Joolz had run out.
Came the weekend and the spanners duly arrived - but no sign of the gaskets - bugger ! Ah well at least I can tackle the manifold removal. First job was to lube up the bolts and especially the big stainless clamp at the other end of the manifold. Jim at HHC warned me that these sometimes stick together and need some persuasion to come apart. WD40 it was then coz I'd run out of Penol.
The top bolts are fairly easy to get out. I moved the black plastic plenum pipe out of the way, took off all the spark plug leads and removed the dipstick Having removed the top bolts came the worst task...the bottom ones. I'd been told that you need to get under the car to remove these. So up she went on the axle stands - what a waste of time this was. You can see bugger all of the manifold from underneath - especially when you only have axle stands. I subsequently found that you CAN get to all the bolts from the top, it you have smallish hands like me. Although I was lucky that most of the bolts weren't stuck in really tight .
The worst one is the #7 cylinder the one at the back of the engine, but even this bolt is do-able if you have a smallish AF ring spanner like this one .
and you use the space sort of behind the engine to turn the bolt like this...
Having got out all the bolts you then release the stainless clamp thingy at the other end.
This was a bit of a cow and need a little judicious clouting with a piece of wood to persuade it to come apart. I cleaned the faces and then went on to clean off all the old gasket material from the manifold and the faces on the head.
Sunday came around and I began to think that maybe Royal Mail were playing their old trick of taking my parcel to the post office round the corner and not leaving a card. This turned out to be the case - b*rst*rds - could have had it finished yesterday.
Jim from HHC had come up trumps again and the whole lot - 4 double gaskets, all the bolts and spring washers for both sides came to about £35 inc delivery.
the old gasket.
Refitting took about 1 hour - the worst bit is trying to juggle the loose manifold whilst getting a bolt through a hole with a gasket the other side and then holding it all whilst you start the bolt without dropping the lot in the engine bay......phew. I suggest you get the bottom one right at the back ,cylinder 7, started first then cylinder 5's top one then cylinder 1 top and then cylinder 3 bottom. you can then wind these in to roughly where it wants to be. Then get the other 4 bolts started and proceed to fasten the big stainless clamp at the other end.
Now it's just a job of carefully tightening everything up being careful not to damage the gaskets.
As my manifold gasket went ( I think ) due to what transpired at the MOT I am holding off on doing the other side gasket just now as it's seems to be just fine thank you. I have all the parts and now the knowledge to change that side if they go later.
