swine
Senior Member
Installed the BD Diesel exhaust manifolds this weekend. Like many, many others my truck developed the annoying exhaust tick. I explored the different options; headers (both long and short), OEM, milling. Most of the shorty headers had pretty mixed reviews on long term reliability (saw lots of reports of cracked welds) and the ones with the best reputation (aFe short tube) were $1000. Long headers require replacing the whole exhaust system, adding even more expense. OEM is just asking for a repeat result. Milling might be a possibility, but you don't know the condition until after you remove the manifolds.
I wasn't looking for any performance gains, I just wanted reliability and some measure of affordability, so I decided to give the BD manifolds a try. These guys have a great reputation in the diesel performance world (which is way more stressful on parts). Reach out to Nick at GotExhaust if you're interested in these.
Anyhow there's plenty of documentation on replacing manifolds so I won't address that here. Driver's side appeared fine, no broken bolts. Passenger side had two broken bolts. Both of the ones at the rear cylinder. Both were broken basically even with the surface of the head. I opted to weld nuts on to the remains of the bolts to get them out. Much easier than trying to drill them out. The last picture shows how far from level the manifold was on that last cylinder.
The install was as straight forward as you would expect. The BD Diesel kit has everything you need to install the new manifolds, all new bolts and gaskets. The only thing I didn't anticipate was having to replace the heat shields. Both were cracked on the mounting points and it didn't seem like a good idea to reuse them. The new manifolds move the mounting spots slightly so that they use their own bolts to mount rather than the piggyback OEM style.
Anyhow, it went fairly well and definitely stopped the tick. Only time will tell if these are a permanent solution.
I wasn't looking for any performance gains, I just wanted reliability and some measure of affordability, so I decided to give the BD manifolds a try. These guys have a great reputation in the diesel performance world (which is way more stressful on parts). Reach out to Nick at GotExhaust if you're interested in these.
Anyhow there's plenty of documentation on replacing manifolds so I won't address that here. Driver's side appeared fine, no broken bolts. Passenger side had two broken bolts. Both of the ones at the rear cylinder. Both were broken basically even with the surface of the head. I opted to weld nuts on to the remains of the bolts to get them out. Much easier than trying to drill them out. The last picture shows how far from level the manifold was on that last cylinder.
The install was as straight forward as you would expect. The BD Diesel kit has everything you need to install the new manifolds, all new bolts and gaskets. The only thing I didn't anticipate was having to replace the heat shields. Both were cracked on the mounting points and it didn't seem like a good idea to reuse them. The new manifolds move the mounting spots slightly so that they use their own bolts to mount rather than the piggyback OEM style.
Anyhow, it went fairly well and definitely stopped the tick. Only time will tell if these are a permanent solution.
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