How hard is it to remove manifolds?

[avu3]

I need to replace my manifolds, the Cats are shot. How hard is it really? I read a few posts that said the front was not so bad but the rear was hard, one fellow mentioned removing the alternator, which was a 2 day affair for me when I did it earlier this year.

Someone mentioned as part of a cat gutting post that he had them off and back on in 3 hours.

Anyone give me any insight? I'm pretty darn handy most of the time, having built a race car, maintained/rebuilt a few others, and restored a bunch of stuff, but stuff on this Contour really tries my patience for some reason.

Thanks!
Scott

 

[KingpinSVT]

If the alternator took you two days then you are in for a treat with this.

If you get all the studs out of the block on the backside you dont have to remove the alt. Otherwise, the alt. has to be unbolted and pushed out of the way to make room for the manifold to come down. You dont have to totally remove it.

 

[Tourige]

If the alternator took you two days then you are in for a treat with this.

If you get all the studs out of the block on the backside you dont have to remove the alt. Otherwise, the alt. has to be unbolted and pushed out of the way to make room for the manifold to come down. You dont have to totally remove it.

You dont have to do that either.

On my car all i had to do was unbolt the bolts and then unscrew the studs. Wasent that tough.

you can Gut the manifolds while they are still on the car. Its easy. I did it on my brothers car in like an hour.

 

[wadespencer99]

I gutted my precats while they were on the car. I feel that if you are going to the trouble of removing them, you should just install some headers.

The header install is definetely a time consuming process. Give yourself a lot of time if you plan on doing it.

 

[Tourige]

I gutted my precats while they were on the car. I feel that if you are going to the trouble of removing them, you should just install some headers.

The header install is definetely a time consuming process. Give yourself a lot of time if you plan on doing it.

Took me and a buddy 17 hours (including jacking the car up, playing with the exhaust, wiring MIL's, figuring out best angle to attack with) Its a lot of work. If i did it now, i could do it in probably 4 or 5 hours tops.

When you gut your precats(on the car) make sure you remove the )2 sensors to revent from damaging them. I left mine in and luckily didnt damage it.

 

[wadespencer99]

Yeah...heh...I spent all of a Sunday afternoon and Monday morning doing it.

I bought a used set of MSDS Vortech spec headers from DanG. He gave me the advice to remove the stud, not just the nut, to give the manifold enough clearance to come off. After struggling with various extensions/universals I was getting pretty frustrated having it slip off a lot, so I put a 5mm socket on a 1/4" ratchet and just reached up in there and worked on the end of the stud itself. That definetely worked the best for me. It went much smoother after I did that.

 

[avu3]

Thanks for the feedback. I don't know why the Alt was so hard, in retrospect. I think reaching the bolts was the biggest challenge. I have thick hands and short fingers, not a lot of range on them and they don't fit places too good. As I recall I tried to NOT remove the y pipe for some silly reason. I think once that was off it was cake, which was, of course, probably 12 hours into a 14 hour job...

As far as gutting the cats, a) I'm not. b) I would do headers if I were and c) I would never do it on the car. having lost motors to things getting inside them, I'd sooner take the cats off and gut them on the ground than let stuff fly around in there. Sure, lots of folks have had fine luck with that, but with my luck, i'd kill it.

Good talk on the studs, thanks. I assume I could probably double nut them to pull them out. You guys using new gaskets (are there even gaskets?) on re-assembly?

Scott

 

[Tourige]

The studs are 5mm IIRC, they are easy enough to remove if you can get grip on them. Here is what i do:

Lie on your back with your legs out of the passenger side of the car. reach up with your right hand and put the socket+extensions over the subframe up to the manifold. Guide the end on with your left hand and start to turn it with your right. If you need help. Call a friend.