Front header's cracked . . . engine's coming out?

How on earth did that header get a crack in it? Was there a misfire on that bank and the manifold just got too hot?

 

Any other way to get to that header?

Mine just developed a crack at the exhaust test tube

 

Hold on! Unless you just WANT to yank it out....


You can get it out thru the RH wheel well if you drain and remove the gas tank on that side....

Been there, done that...

Your call........

 

I don't know....there has to be a way doesn't there?
I wonder if you called one of the experts like Stanford or Pollard, etc. if they'd know a trick.

 

I just gave it to him.......

Pull the motor mount bolts and jacking the engine slightly can help also......get after it!

 

Mine fell out in two big pieces...and there some fragments apparently left in the road as well.....LOL!

 

I swear Tex....is there anything you haven't done on a 308? You know every trick in the book.

 

Yea, actually TUNE the gosh darned thing............LOL!

It just happens that the header failure was the FIRST thing to go wrong with #22127, before I met JRV........it was that failure that led me to his door.


He looked at the pieces in the bed of my truck and said:

"Those should last a lifetime, you have something else wrong with the engine"...and as usual, he was correct, we had to totally go thru the ignition and carburation once we had it back together.

All the rest of my headers lasted thru HIS lifetime, anyway.....

 

The rear one blew apart a few months later, but by then I was used to the car bursting into flames.........got my daughter and her gf out of the car and put it out........

 

IMO it's just thermal cycling generating the fatigue, spotty construction quality to start with.....

Ignition malfunctions do not help....used units are hard to find, that tells you something!

Later versions used spring loaded bolts at the tri-flange, from the 328 and F40 parts book.......

Qucksilver and Tubi are making replacement units now, IIRC......no experience with either vendor but it's only a matter of time...

 

Your rear engine brace at the top is still in place?

That sounds like too much movement, to me.......

 

If your car is a North American spec with the shielding over the header, it is easier to remove the engine than pull the header out. I did this job a couple of years back and removing the header is THE most tedious mechanical job I have ever done. It does come out with the engine in however it is not at all worth the effort. It is much less time to pull the engine and a ton less grief. Once I was done I felt like a fool for not pulling the engine. Not only that, with the engine out you can tackle a bunch of other small projects that are a pain with the engine in but take minutes with it out. Lastly with the engine out you can detail everything and powerwash the engine bay with almost no problem at all.

If you have European headers or all the shielding has been stripped off of your header then removing it is pretty easy and should not take more than 2-3 hours.

In summary:

Can you get it out without pulling the engine: YES
Is it worth the extra effort: NO WAY

 

"Mr. Blobby was a Ferrari factory welder...."

I think I read that in a Doug Nye book once.......

 

That looks original to me........can you get all the way around it with good penetration?

 

There's the rub, and the fact the metal's so old it'll crystallize and crack at the edge of the new bead.......your call!

There's a thread on 'ultimate 308 exhaust system' that discusses new headers......

 

Yea, I know it sounds easy to yank it, but shifting linkage, other attachments, breaking the rear window.....all are factors for other methods.....

We'll drop a valve soon enough......

THEN we'll yank it out of there.........

 

Well, I pulled mine out through the bottom. I figured I needed to pull the console out anyway, so how hard would it be to pull the shift rod out? That was actually pretty easy. Oh, the alternator and starter held it up too, so off they came. I could almost get it out, but the motor just wouldnt let it pass. So I removed the muffler, disconnected the coolant lines, pulled the motor mounts, disconnected the clutch and jacked up the engine. Nope. unbolted the oil cooler and hooked up the cherry picker and really lifted up the motor. Nope, &$@(*$#@ it. I might as just as well have pulled the motor out, as I already had everything unhooked except the drive axles. By lifting it WAY UP and back, I finally was able to fish it out, but DO NOT DO IT THAT WAY.

I know as they went up in years they get harder to work on, more stuff in the way, fatter parts etc., but really, if that gas tank had been out of the way it would have come right out of there. Just pull the tank. Those welds look like crap and are full of slag holes, looks like an old repair. If it was possible to have the headers heated up in a high temp oven after you repair them, cherry red for about an hour, it would anneal them and prevent further breaks for a while. Thats probably the one really good thing about having them ceramic coated, they get annealed real good.