Our first day on the trip from Seattle to Little Rock we started getting dizzy and sick in the Volvo.  I thought I could smell exhaust. 🙁  So the next morning I checked the manifold and it was leaking pretty badly; (pictured) between the manifold and downpipe.  At this point we were in Yakima WA, we stopped by Muffler Bandit and of course they did not have a new gasket for a 50 year old car, but he tightened up the pipe enough to make the car a little less lethal.  After 5 days and 2300 miles the exhaust had slowly opened up again.  I purchased a new gasket and began the surgery.  The issue was obvious, the nuts, which look like three random nuts the previous owner found lying about, were rusted so bad they had lost most of their threads.  You can see by the photo that the studs are also not in the best of shape.   You can also note the carbon on the old gasket because of the leak, it was also pretty rusty.  The new bolts are holding well, but I just do not trust this old exhaust manifold; I have read that you cannot really trust these old cast iron manifolds.  So, I have decided to replace the whole exhaust system.  I have purchased a steel header (pictured) and will have it installed soon.  A local muffler shop has looked at the car and will install a 2″ exhaust pipe with muffler.  This pipe will be a 1/2″ larger, so maybe the engine can breathe a little better.  I will add more photos when the new exhaust is installed.

Products used:

• New gasket
• Three new grade 8 bolts and lock