Manifold Snapped

[hughesdt]

Had both of my exhaust pipes break at the flange. The shop cut the pipe about 1ft below the manifold, took off the flange and welded it back together. No broken bolts, probably got lucky. Bolted it back together and then welded the pipe back together.

Wasn't very happy with it at the time, looks like crap. But it has held together for several years now.

Dan

[iyafyl]

So, I removed the sway bar and the cross beam under the tranny, then pulled off the exhaust, got it welded up better than before, and got everything back on without a hitch. Can't believe it. No broken studs or anything and my baby runs good as new!! There is something I noticed when doing this that I'd thought I'd share. I have seen a bunch of posts about the mystery of a VX being stuck in park at random untimely moments. I noticed when removing the cross beam that a)it supports the t-case and when the t-case drops a bit you can't get the VX out of park, and b) the top side of that cross member has a huge chunk of rubber between it and the t-case. My thoughts are that if a guy (or gal) lived in one of those climates that cause rubber to go bad quickly, then maybe the rubber there has gone bad enough to drop the t-case a bit and cause random issues with the shifter getting stuck in park. Why did I think about this? Well, my dumb butt tried to back up the VX a little after dropping the cross member only about 1/2 an inch and my shifter was stuck in park. So, for those having that issue, and it doesn't seem to be the selector switch or anything else, maybe try and put a jack under the t-case and raise it up a bit and then try to shift it. This may be a little difficult if it happens in a Wal-Mart parking lot though. Lookie there, I hijacked my own thread