2002 Honda Accord EX - 200k miles
While lowering my car after the massive clutch job, I got lazy and rushed it. The block on my floor jack slipped and the car came crashing down. In the process, the floor jack dented the exhaust. Without that though, I would not have ever looked at the exhaust manifold -which was ALREADY leaking. SO I guess I can thank myself for my own stupidity which helped me fix something else.
I ended up removing the OEM gasket, drilling out a broken stud because I didn't yet have a proper extractor (dumbest thing I did on my end), putting old gasket back (leaked), bought new gasket which fit but had this "quilted" texture to it, as well as a triangular "quilted" gasket in between the manifold and the downpipe, both of those leaked like crazy, so I put old OEM gasket on and a new crush washer/ring at the downpipe connection. Makes me think old crush ring washer disintegrated over time??? There was nothing there when I removed it???
Crush washer worked, but this time I put RTV sealant on old OEM gasket, but when I drilled out the bottom right hole due to new larger 10mm stud, I didn't drill it large enough. It forced the gasket to ripple or buckle when sandwiched between block and manifold. More leaks. Took it apart, again, and used a new OEM gasket, drilled out properly, with RTV sealant. Shocker = no leaks.
Holy cow there were some lessons learned:
- Replace all your studs when replacing this gasket. They get heat treated over and over during the life of your vehicle. At 18 yrs old, I'm shocked they didn't all break.
- Use the process I highlight to extract broken off studs. It's really easy.
- Despite how annoying this is, don't stop until it's fixes. You don't want to be driving with an exhaust leak - ever.
It is Feb 2021, and this was done early 2020. I don't have links for anything. My receipts are all gone and I'm just really behind in my YT videos. Don't have this car anymore, but it worked well after this fix...at least the exhaust. Oh, there's more videos coming from this blasted car.
Music:
Ventura - Summer