Where is my exhaust leak?

[petik]

I've a E99 with an exhaust leak. A little bit of background first: I bought an E99 crew cab dually nearly a year ago for a good price, but it came with some issues. You can browse through those in another thread here: Bad IDM fixed, now bad injectors?

Basically I had to drop over $2k to replace all injectors, fuel pump, get a chip, and fix a bunch of other little stuff.

All along, I knew I had an exhaust leak somewhere under the hood. When idling the truck with the hood open I could see a bit of smoke billowing off the top of the motor. Just looking at it I could not and still cannot point out exactly where it is coming from. What I do know is that it's not minor. When idling sitting in the cab, the exhaust smell gets in the cab pretty quickly. My gas mileage has never been above 13mpg even at highway unladen and really watching my right foot.

Now from all the reading I've done, I see that people tend to have the up-pipes fail a lot. I tried (the best I could) to check those out. From the bottom of the truck I can see the driver side up-pipe pretty good and there is next to no soot on it and when looking at it from underneath the truck while running I don't see any smoke around the joint. I'm assuming the other one is similar. The downpipe looks pretty clean as well.

So I'm left with the headers. The driver side of the truck sounds louder than the passenger side, by quite a bit. I'm wondering if I could have a cracked header or a blown gasket. Is this common?

Also, is it common to see a 12-13mpg on this truck with an exhaust leak? From what I hear, I should be seeing more in the 17mpg range on this truck. Lastly, how common is it to have the charge piping couplings fail? when I was doing some other work on the truck, the couplings were covered with a thick layer of oil and grime - I'm assuming that came from inside...

Thanks for any help guys.

[petik]

I spent a lot more time today looking at and "feeling" around all the exhaust joints. manifolds->up-pipe, up-pipe to collector, collector to turbo and turbo->downpipe. I was really surprised to not find any soot (except in place...), just rust, on a 12yr old truck with 205k miles.

Now that one place I found soot was on the passenger side up-pipe to collector connection. Absolutely zero on the driver's side on either collector or manifold side.

Now since this is an E99, and I'm not ready to drop the 800 bucks on bellowed up-pipes, I'm thinking going to the felpro gasket route and seeing how long I can make this last. I'm thinking that if I can get another 50k out of it and have the turbo die or something else in that area, I'm just going to drop the money on a full 99.5+ conversion then. Meanwhile though...just a gasket change it would be.

So the question is, can I drop just the passenger side up-pipe without removing the turbo or collector? My plan would be to drop the downpipe and then go through the passenger side wheel well, but I've never mucked around there and would like to have a plan of action. From y'all that have done this before, can you please comment on whether this could be doable?

[mgassel]

Originally Posted by petik

I spent a lot more time today looking at and "feeling" around all the exhaust joints. manifolds->up-pipe, up-pipe to collector, collector to turbo and turbo->downpipe. I was really surprised to not find any soot (except in place...), just rust, on a 12yr old truck with 205k miles.

Now that one place I found soot was on the passenger side up-pipe to collector connection. Absolutely zero on the driver's side on either collector or manifold side.

Now since this is an E99, and I'm not ready to drop the 800 bucks on bellowed up-pipes, I'm thinking going to the felpro gasket route and seeing how long I can make this last. I'm thinking that if I can get another 50k out of it and have the turbo die or something else in that area, I'm just going to drop the money on a full 99.5+ conversion then. Meanwhile though...just a gasket change it would be.

So the question is, can I drop just the passenger side up-pipe without removing the turbo or collector? My plan would be to drop the downpipe and then go through the passenger side wheel well, but I've never mucked around there and would like to have a plan of action. From y'all that have done this before, can you please comment on whether this could be doable?

800 for bellowed up pipes were the hell you getting them from? Got to diesel o rings he sells them for about 1/2 of that.

[03_Turbo7.3]

cost me next to nothing for Ford ones and new gaskets and bolts, was pretty cheap.

[dentexpowerstroke]

i had only my passanger side up leak and it made a huge difference replacing that. it will hurt your mileage having the leak. mine only had traces of soot around it and it was completely loose when i took it apart where the driver side was tight.

[petik]

Originally Posted by mgassel

800 for bellowed up pipes were the hell you getting them from? Got to diesel o rings he sells them for about 1/2 of that.

Those are for 99.5+ trucks. As I mentioned in my post this truck is an E99 and the international kit for those runs twice as much as 99.5+ kits.

[petik]

Originally Posted by dentexcoalroller

i had only my passanger side up leak and it made a huge difference replacing that. it will hurt your mileage having the leak. mine only had traces of soot around it and it was completely loose when i took it apart where the driver side was tight.

Were you able to replace it without pulling the turbo or collector? Or did you have to do the full procedure just like when replacing both sides?

[JJR]

I have a early 99 and replaced the passenger side up pipe gasket buy removing the down pipe and passenger side inner wheel well. It sucks but can be done without removing the turbo. You will need a long extension and a wobble socket. Spray bolts and nuts a couple of times the night before with penetrating oil.

[petik]

Originally Posted by JJR

I have a early 99 and replaced the passenger side up pipe gasket buy removing the down pipe and passenger side inner wheel well. It sucks but can be done without removing the turbo. You will need a long extension and a wobble socket. Spray bolts and nuts a couple of times the night before with penetrating oil.

Thanks much - that's what I was looking for. I'm planning on using the Felpro 8194 crush donut on the collector side. What gasket is used on the manifold side?

[petik]

Realized no gasket on the manifold...

I disconnected the downpipe on both ends, but can't seem to be able to drop it out. There just doesn't seem to be enough room on either side to pull it out. How does it come out? Is there anything else that needs to be removed for the down pipe to drop out?