Exhaust manifold

[belvedere]

The XJ money pit strikes again. Cracked exhaust manifold.

1. Has anyone ever used the POR15 product Fire Seal 2000? It would be nice if I could put this project (manifold replacement) off until spring; I have so many projects to do before winter.

2. How big of a job is it to replace the exhaust manifold? (98 XJ, 4.0)

Thanks for any advice!

[bluedragon436]

I'm sure that someone with far more experience will jump in here shortly.. But for the two manifolds that I have replaced on other folks Jeeps I have found that the easiest way to do it is to pull the IM and all the stuff that connects to it. Another reason for this is because the seal between the exhaust manifold and head is shared by the IM as well, so you would want to replace that so you'd have to pull the IM anyways. I dont really know what kind of time you are looking at spending doing this swap, as I have always been doing other things to the Jeeps in the process of slowly doing the exhaust manifold swap.

[NW99XJ]

ITS NOT TOO BAD... Seems pretty daunting looking at everything thats involved.
If you have a good set of tools you can do it. I did a full write up of the process in my build thread. Check it out!
The hardest part is going to be the lower bolts on the manifold. Kind of a PITA to get to, but doable. You do have to remove the intake, the intake manifold, and the fuel rail/injectors - removed as an assembly to keep it easy.
I took lots of pics along the way, and I believe I linked to some of the online sources that I used for advice/research before diving in...
Also, I highly recommend getting the same header I did, and I go over these reasons in the write up: http://www.xjtalk.com/showthread.php?t=11347&page=4

[Jeepster19]

I also replaced my exhaust manifold with a header a few years back when I did a head gasket change.I replaced it with a Banks Torque Tube header,but here lately I started hearing exhaust noise under the hood again.I checked the pipe to header doughnut gasket and it looked good,so I put it back together.By the way,the bolts worked loose a bit I noticed so I made sure they were good and tight,still noisy.I hope it's just a bad gasket and not a cracked header,the header wasn't cheap! I'm going to take it apart this weekend if the gasket comes in.

[belvedere]

Thanks for the tips, guys.