Exhaust flange above X member...

[Alpha-Lykos]

96 Suburban, all stock.

The gasket on the exhaust flange (from the cats to the rest of the exhaust) above the crossmember where the torsion bar keys are blew out on me last week.

So this weekend while trying to replace it I broke off two of the studs and the third was already broken off.

Afraid of breaking of the studs in the exhaust manifold to remove the exhaust to do this properly we welded as much as we could of the flange from under and packed the top of the flange with repair putty.


Yes, it's as ugly and half assed as it sounds. And I imagine also temporary...


So what low buck options do I have here?

Keep adding putty as it blows out?

Pay a shop to cut out the flange and weld in patch pipes?

Sell the Suburban and go on a bender with women of questionable moral standing?


God I hate exhaust work.

 

[SunlitComet]

remove the manifold to get the old studs out and put new ones in.

 

[BobG999999]

96 Suburban, all stock.

The gasket on the exhaust flange (from the cats to the rest of the exhaust) above the crossmember where the torsion bar keys are blew out on me last week.

So this weekend while trying to replace it I broke off two of the studs and the third was already broken off.

Afraid of breaking of the studs in the exhaust manifold to remove the exhaust to do this properly we welded as much as we could of the flange from under and packed the top of the flange with repair putty.


Yes, it's as ugly and half assed as it sounds. And I imagine also temporary...


So what low buck options do I have here?

Keep adding putty as it blows out?

Pay a shop to cut out the flange and weld in patch pipes?

Sell the Suburban and go on a bender with women of questionable moral standing?


God I hate exhaust work.

I know this is old, but I have the exact same problem. Did you ever figure out a solution?

 

[Fless]

I know this is old, but I have the exact same problem. Did you ever figure out a solution?

The OP hasn't been on here since March 2019, so I wouldn't expect an answer.

 

[Eman85]

I just replaced the flange gasket on a Tahoe. I have a torch so that helped with the 2 outer ones. The inner one was so bad it just broke off. I drilled it out and put a through bolt in it like the factory should have. Now drilling it out was not easy, some of it was using a carbide grinder on an angle air powered die grinder. Cleaning up the flanges was another pain, I wedged a piece of wood in so I could scrape and use a wire brush on the die grinder to clean. I used a new FelPro gasket and coated it with high temp RTV around the holes.