Yd25 exhaust manifold gasket replacement.

[Marked]

Can anyone give me an idea of the amount of work involved? Replaced the turbo ourselves earlier in the year, and now seeing the tell-tale soot spatter coming from the manifold to head gasket interface. Even checking that the nuts are tight seemsa bit of a pain with all the heat shielding and turbo in the way. Are we better off just handing off to a trusted mechanic to look after the problem?

Opinions greatfully received ...

 

[BarneyB]

I'm a keen DIY mechanic with my vehicles. But exhaust manifolds are a ball-ache.
It's often one of those "commit or quit" jobs.

If you have MAP Gas or Oxy set, angle grinder, Dremel, anti-seize compound, tap & die set, comprehensive set of spanners etc then
you can tackle it yourself - with patience.
But expect to break, remove & replace at least one stud or munt the threads on another.
Some will take a while to move the nut back and forth to slowly work it off the stud. Patience is beneficial - if a nut doesn't want to unwind in one go, don't rush it.

Start soaking all the nuts & studs with penetrant at least a day before (or even longer).

Another product that has helped me is Loctite Freeze/Release spray. It's expensive, but it works in conjunction with MAP Gas or Oxy.
Some nuts will take a few heat & freeze cycles.

There's some good tips & tricks on YouTube for using a welder to remove stubborn nuts and studs too. Especially after you have either snapped one or given up & cut it with a grinder or hacksaw.

And if there's any chance that you're keeping the truck long-term use lots of high temp anti-seize when re-assembling.

 

[Dinro]

Depends how much you want to dedicate to it. As old mate above says, once you're in kinda have to commit. I did mine last chrissy, not as bad as i thought. I replaced turbo as well while i was there. I could get all but one stud off using the old 2 bolt method, one i had to weld a nut on, thats it. After studs out its piece of piss obviously. Depends how old / seized yours are, mine was 2014 and no rusted bolts or studs.

 

[Marked]

Does the turbo require complete removal, or can it be twisted out of the way? I found the oil feed pipes particularly challenging to keeping my sanity whilst refitting the turbo back in Feb.

 

[Dinro]

No way. No room there, you need to remove the turbo to get to bottom manifold nuts and studs. Plus to change the manifold its connected to the turbo so you have to remove it anyway. I attached turbo to manifold first then connected all the lines when the turbo is set in position.