83 w-150 exhaust replacement

[Woody]

Hi. I'm Adam from Bentonville Arkansas, formerly from Arvada Colorado.

My first post here and I'll try to keep it together but no promises.

I happen to have one abused, cannibalized and bastardized truck. It's been through salt rats squirrels and the poor mechanical skills of the previous owner. Anyways....

I am trying to go back to the original style exhaust since headers were requiring more work than I wanted and this aint no hotrod anyways.

It had the passenger manifold cracked, bolts and studs stripped broke loose or missing and both manifolds corroded from exhaust leaks. The entire exhaust system was loose and rusted.

I purchased a cat back single exhaust from summit minus the cat convertor and a pair of new cast iron exhaust manifolds.

Here is the problem. The driver side has the cupped outlet on the flange end and the passenger side requires a donut gasket since it is flat faced and no one seems to show a listing for the part number. The other problem being that I'm skeptical about the drivers side not having a gasket and relying solely on the cupped end of the y pipe to seal against the cupped end of the exhaust flange.

I'm debating on taking the old drivers manifold since it doesn't seem cracked and putting it on the passenger side since it doesn't require a donut. My other thought is to buy another passenger side manifold and put it on the driver side and figure out what donut fits it.

The part store can order another passenger side manifold to get here by Wednesday but I kind of want to get my truck together. Also, the old driver side manifold flange may be distorted on the flange end because the previous owner let the exhaust run so loose that I think it damaged it to where it may not seal.

The big questions.
Should I buy the one donut to make the passenger exhaust flange seal?
Should I buy another passenger side manifold with the flat exit end to put on the driver side?
Should I take off the new passenger side manifold and put on the old Driver side manifold that has the cupped exit on the flange?
What is the part number for that donut gasket for the flange?
Do the cup style flanges that require no gasket really seal or am I better off using the flat style and the donut for the exhaust flange.


Sorry, no pics because I cracked my cell screen in my pocket while fighting this bad boy.


Any help appreciated, surely somebody knows what I'm talking about and has had this problem.

-Adam

 

[crazzywolfie]

driver and passenger side manifolds are the same. just stick the good old manifold back on and put the new one where the cracked one was. you will not need any donut gasket if you get everything tight like you should. you should just ship the other manifold back to where you bought it.

 

[Woody]

Thanks. I'm concerned about the corrosion on the old manifold as well as the fact that it is warped......

 

[crazzywolfie]

are you sure it is warped? i think it would be pretty hard to warp a manifold just because of how heavy they are. if all else fail you could swap the wrong new manifold for the correct manifold needed.

 

[Woody]

Yes it's warped. I took my dry wall t square across the three flanges and atleast the middle and one of the ends has some rocking. Is it significant enough to cause problems I don't know. "they say".... that if the manifold is warped and you reinstall, it will eventually leak. Also if the corrosion is significant, it will be a pain to keep it sealed and you need to have it resurfaced.

For now, I have both installed and I found a donut that seems to work though I'm not exactly sure it is the right one. Time will tell. I'm still thinking of taking it off and putting the old one back on since the parts store that sold it was not at all helpful in finding the donut therefore they deserve to eat it.

I fought it all yesterday in 95 degrees heat plus humidity. Hate hate hate summertime .

I hate to take it back off since it seems to be fixed, just drives me nuts knowing that the flange ends don't match.

I need to find the bag that the donut came in so I can post the part number incase someone decides to go this route.