Has anyone ever found a good quick temporary repair for that small crack most XJs get were all the exhaust manifold tubes come together? I have a new manifold but untill I get around to changing it I'd like to try something. Mines not a big crack just a hairline one but I smell exhaust sometimes and get occasional O2 sensor codes. Thanks

 

I would just wait till u have time to install new manifold...i took my old one off and welded it. Never had another leak after that.

 

I doesn't take long to swap the new one on. By the time you did something to fix the old one you could have installed the new one...

 

Yep I think my manifold has a tiny crack too but the bolts holding it on look seized in there so I will leave well alone

 

They will all crack eventually, you can grind down the crack a bit and weld it up if you feel you really must. Just let it go and replace it when you have the time would be the best bet.

 

I was able to weld one up with it still on the truck before, looked like crap but didnt leak. Doesnt take too long to pull them off though and weld it nice.

 

The bad thing with welding an old manifold would be that you still have the original problem of little to no flex in it. Even the generic replacement manifolds have the "accordion" flex joints on the first and last pipes.

I pulled my cracked manifold off a few weeks ago when I thought I had just the one crack by the collector. Once it was off I noticed another 3 or 4 hairline cracks on some of the other areas too. I forgot to mention my manifold was already welded up once before and the weld broke worse than it was the first time. It made it about 5,000 welded though.

 

My weld job has lasted 50k miles so far and a lot of it was through a winter when it was running lean causing the header to glow bright orange often.

I have also had a header with a flex pipe on it blow out the flex portion. Was much larger of a leak than any cracked manifold ive ever heard.

 

Getting ready to pull mine off and weld it. Is it a pretty simple job? Does the intake manifold have to come off too?

 

yes it's a pretty easy job, took me and a buddy about 3 hours last week to change mine out. Of course I start pb blasting it 2 weeks before hand. To remove the exhaust manifold you have to pretty much remove everything on the driver side of the engine. Airbox and plumbing, power steering pump, intake and fuel line. The intake and exhaust share common bolts and a gasket, so be sure you have a new gasket handy. Theres a pretty excellent write up on how to do it in the write up section.

 

Great, thanks, Do you know where or have the link to the write up?

 

https://www.cherokeeforum.com/f51/je...91-98-a-80445/