I have had an exhaust leak that has been getting worse for about a year now. With a little spare time this weekend I decided to see what I needed to do to fix it. I have read a lot about this issue here and was confident that I could do it myself and save some cash.
Let me start by saying that I was lucky that it was the passenger side had gone bad. After replacing o2 sensors on both sides, I think that this story would have been a little different if I had to work in the driver side. I will try to attach a few pictures that I took along the way.
I decided the leak was coming from the passenger side just by listening under the hood. Seemed very obvious. I got online and started searching for the parts I needed and found the best deal from a site called "DiscountToyotaParts". I ordered a manifold and gasket on Monday, they said it should arrive Friday. When Friday came and went, I checked on the status and saw that it was at least in town and would be delivered the next day.
Saturday I went out to the garage early in the morning, removed the right front tire and splash guard. I soaked the bolts down with PB Blaster and let it sit. My truck came from Texas and is very clean without any rust. By the way it is a 2000 with 2" OME, diff drop and 295's.
At around noon I went back outside and started removing the manifold. I have a decent collection of hand and air tools but only need basic wrenches to take it apart. 30 minutes later I had the bad manifold in my hand and was looking for the source of the leak. As expected. the flange around the front cylinder had cracked about a third of the way around the pipe.
Fedex finally showed up at 6pm. The parts had actually come from a dealer in Round Rock, Texas. What I got was brand new Toyota parts in the box. I paid $207 for the manifold and $15 for the gasket. When I opened up the packages I was surprised to see that it did not come with the studs for the collector. No problem, I'll just jamb nut the old ones and reuse them...or so I thought. The studs finally came out but the threads were destroyed. Ran down to the local hardware store and got some stainless bolts and threaded them into the new manifold and was back in business.
The installation also took about 30 minutes after I had sourced the hardware that I needed. Buttoned the splash guard back in and reinstalled the tire, fired it up and was quite pleased to have a brand new sounding truck!
I guess the reason I am writing is for any of you that need to have this work done, but don't want to spend whatever the dealers are charging, it is a very easy and in expensive way to fix a very annoying problem.
Let me start by saying that I was lucky that it was the passenger side had gone bad. After replacing o2 sensors on both sides, I think that this story would have been a little different if I had to work in the driver side. I will try to attach a few pictures that I took along the way.
I decided the leak was coming from the passenger side just by listening under the hood. Seemed very obvious. I got online and started searching for the parts I needed and found the best deal from a site called "DiscountToyotaParts". I ordered a manifold and gasket on Monday, they said it should arrive Friday. When Friday came and went, I checked on the status and saw that it was at least in town and would be delivered the next day.
Saturday I went out to the garage early in the morning, removed the right front tire and splash guard. I soaked the bolts down with PB Blaster and let it sit. My truck came from Texas and is very clean without any rust. By the way it is a 2000 with 2" OME, diff drop and 295's.
At around noon I went back outside and started removing the manifold. I have a decent collection of hand and air tools but only need basic wrenches to take it apart. 30 minutes later I had the bad manifold in my hand and was looking for the source of the leak. As expected. the flange around the front cylinder had cracked about a third of the way around the pipe.
Fedex finally showed up at 6pm. The parts had actually come from a dealer in Round Rock, Texas. What I got was brand new Toyota parts in the box. I paid $207 for the manifold and $15 for the gasket. When I opened up the packages I was surprised to see that it did not come with the studs for the collector. No problem, I'll just jamb nut the old ones and reuse them...or so I thought. The studs finally came out but the threads were destroyed. Ran down to the local hardware store and got some stainless bolts and threaded them into the new manifold and was back in business.
The installation also took about 30 minutes after I had sourced the hardware that I needed. Buttoned the splash guard back in and reinstalled the tire, fired it up and was quite pleased to have a brand new sounding truck!
I guess the reason I am writing is for any of you that need to have this work done, but don't want to spend whatever the dealers are charging, it is a very easy and in expensive way to fix a very annoying problem.
