Manifold Blowing?

[kevd]

Hi All.

I need some words of wisdom before I start taking things apart. I am getting a ticking/tappetty noise from the offside front of the engine. I notice it more when pulling away or accelerating from a low speed. I've looked and listened all round the engine bay, but cant see anything unusual or even hear it that clearly.
I,m pretty sure it's a manifold gasket starting to blow, but any advice will be greatly recieved as I really do not want to take it all apart when it may have been something else.
I have tried searching this subject as i'm sure it has been covered in depth before, but search function is not working.
Cheers Kev.

[Russell Mc]

Sounds just like the problem I had. Both gaskets were blowing and there was a crack in one manifold. New gaskets and swapping the manifold for a good one sorted it.

[LordGrover]

There may be a tell-tale soot pattern around the hole, there was on mine, anyway. Mine was where the Y-piece joins the manifold.

[gammav]

I had a blowing manifold and discovered that the bolts nearest the bulk head on both sides had come loose...even though they were checked at the service a few months before

Driver side had started to blow and needed new gasket the other side was caught in time.

[roseytvr]

Get hold of a cheap stethoscope and fit some hose pipe to it - you will soon find where it is blowing from.

[red griff roger]

Forget the stethoscope - cut off a bit of garden hose and shove it in your ear. (I am sure Health & Safety will be on to me with advice on putting things in your ear soon). If it helps, I wrote up a set of instructions for changing the manifold gasket, with a few ideas to make it easier. See http://www.rv8r.co.uk/exhaustgasket.html

[kevd]

Many thanks for all the advice. The piece of pipe in the ear trick works a treat, it all becomes obvious when you listen through it. MK1 listening tube was a length of small bore copper gas pipe stuck in my ear until I realised I was touching the HT leads, and was about to electrocute my brain! So then used MK2 rubber hose model, can't really believe how well that works.
On removal all the original gaskets had failed or were very close to failing, they had all split down through the bolt hole.
Drivers side is done, passenger side is ready to be reassembled today, must say it is a challenge and dont want to be doing this too often.
Cheers Kev

[Russell Mc]

What gaskets did you go for as replacements?

[kevd]

I bought the set from ACT with the ARP bolts and Nordlock washers, a bit pricey but I only want to do this once,the gaskets were like a metal sort of sandwich construction. different to the ones I took off which looked like a mica sort of material.

[Russell Mc]

Exactly what I went for

[A500TVR]

I also went for ACT's ARP's but found a 3/8 ratchet spanner on eBay made putting everything back together really easy!