Well, I fell asleep watching Bathurst after we got home last night. I’m not saying that the race was boring, but I did manage to check out during what I think was the 13th safety car. Given that I was tired enough to sleep through cars on a racetrack, I went to bed with a plan to get that gasket out first thing in the morning. You need to understand, though, that first thing in the morning means something different around here on Sundays, so after three or four cups of coffee and some really serious web browsing, I padded out to the garage.
First order of bidnizz was to loosen up the longitudinal engine mounts. That meant the torque tube on the front right and taking the top nut off the solid bobble strut on the transmission:
May I take a minute and say, “what’s the deal with all the surface rust down there?”
Anyway, once those were popped loose, I loosened the bracket holding on the coolant feed for the turbo and put my floor jack to the back of the transmission to rock the engine forward. Again invoking the principle of “I have no idea how I’m going to do this in reverse”, I used a prybar to push the manifold back over the studs so I could slip the gasket out. I think I might be best served by trying to remove the studs before trying to re-install, but I’m open to suggestions.
Here’s the exhaust leak:
The focus is pretty terrible, but you can basically see right through the layers of the gasket. The number 2 exhaust port (giggity) was the worst, but #3 was pretty bad, too. Later on today, I’m going to make a run to my FLAPS and get a new gasket and a new knock sensor.