It looks like I have a crack in one of my manifolds.

What's involved in removing them?

It looks straightforward enough but, as usual, space is limited.

Are there any problems that I'm not anticipating?

Nearside you can get to just taking off the airbox & water rail on that side (i.e. drain coolant first).

Drivers side needs the engine mounts taken off, and engine swung over. You can *just* do it without removing the plates on the engine, just the drivers side rubber mount (it unscrews) and brackets on chassis.

So.

1. 1 BUY A 13MM RATCHETING SPANNER from halfords or something.

-jack car up to get under & remove front wheels
-remove exhuast system inc cats (may need to remove rear ARB mounts to get exhaust out, let it swing down)
-remove plate under engine.

-remove top engine cover thingy (techinical term illudes me)
-remove both airboxes.
-drain coolant
-remove both coolant rails (undo pipework at both ends, then the M8 bolts)
-place jack under engine supported with wood. Jack up to *just* take load of engine.
-remove both engine mount brakets on each side of chassis (I found some 50mm square or so wood that I put between the engine mounting plates and chassis - this means you can drop it down onto them and the engine will stay in roughtly the same place as if mounts were installed. Works great when you send them off for welding )
-on drives side unscrew rubber mount.

remove nearside manifold first. Undo M8 bolts on manifold. Before allowing it to move get under car, swing it down slightly, and remove lamda sensor. Now you can fully remove the manifold by dragging it upward past the engine.

pax side manifold requires you to swing the engine over to the pax side. You can JUST and I mean JUST get the manifold out if you swing it as far as it will go, and get it as high as it will go without the mounting plate putting force on the steering column, so be careful. But if you can get the engine in just the right place, the manifolds will come out with a cheeky 1/2 turn and a lean on the top of the trumpets to move the top of engine another 5mm or so.

Refit reverse of removal

I hope it's your nearside gone

Argh! Looks like I'm in the same boat too. And it's the driver's side one (sod's law, eh?).

Do you have to take the passenger side one off to be able to move the engine enough to get the driver's side one out?

For those who'd had them TIG repaired - how has the repair held up? I'm considering replacement rather than repair, but the ACT ones are a bit pricey at >£1k once you've added the VAT. On the other hand, I don't particularly fancy having to do this job a second time...

Did mine last year, cleaned up MiG welded the cracks, added stiffeners
and lagged them. Year later new crack in a new place and guess what -
drivers side. Going to try and keep going for a while yet until the brake
upgrade is fitted and the suspension rattle traced and fixed but I think
a set of manifolds from ACT is in order in the new year.

BTW a new TVR set from TVR is approx £700 so the ACT ones are in my mind
a realistic price.

group buy in the new year?

When I bumped into r8nan off here at a PH meet in NI a few months back he was talking about making up better ones for his car.

Perhaps he'll post and tell us if he did and maybe he'd give us some feedback about them and possibly be able to help people with new ones as well.

Hi Ireland

I did try and get new ones made up but it proved to difficult. I then noticed that ACT had developed new ones so I ordered a set from Tim and they arrived on Thursday.
They are definitely a massive improvement over the standard and when you see the work that went into manufacturing these, they are very good value for money.

PS Thanks Tim for getting them made up and sent out, perfect timing