Stupid question for the day: My manifold has started getting a little noisy....found that the leak is in the first (shorter) can-shaped bulge downstream of the flex portion. There's a longer can-shaped bulge further downstream, towards the flange. I'm assuming one of the bulges is the cat and the other one is a resonator, but which is which? Or is this some kinda two-stage converter arrangement?

Reason I ask is, my local salvage yard listed a manifold for $150, but when I talked to them they realized that the cat was built-in, and under state law they can't resell a salvaged cat, so they can cut the cat off and sell me the rest for $100, and then I just have to mate the salvaged manifold to the existing cat. Which should be doable, unless the part that's leaking is the catalytic converter itself, in which case things are going to cost quite a bit more.

 

Take a look at this:

https://www.northamericanmotoring.co...flex-pipe.html

It sounds like we have the same problem. The 'bulge' is the 'pre-cat', something to do with cold start emissions.
Since the manifold, flexpipe, pre-cat & cat are all one piece & $1500 + labor, mine's going to the local exhaust specialist for welding, I hope, tomorrow.

 

Yep, that's exactly what I've got - leak at the pre-cat. I'll talk to my scrap guy and see if he thinks he can cut the cat itself off and let me keep the pre-cat. And like others said, $1500 is a lot of money; if you're OK with non-OEM, they're not hard to find for more like $500. And it's not a hard piece to swap yourself as long as you can safely get under the car (I had to pull mine to get to my starter recently, and it was maybe half an hour to take it off and put it back).

 

Well, mine's fixed!
$120 & 45 minutes - Dracut, MA Exhaust.
Better than $2k.
He said there's not much room, but do-able.

Edit: just to clarify - he welded all around the pre-cat - no dismantling needed.

 

I just had mine welded. I took the exhaust header off (has the cate) they usually break soon after a motor mount failure. So fix that too!

 

Mine's fixed too. I pulled it out and took it to a local guy. Rather than fill the gap between the can and the outer heat shield, he cut the shield back about half an inch. $100, but I had to leave it with him for a couple of days.

 

Thanks for the tip. I replaced the passenger side mount back in the spring, but apparently not soon enough....