Need a little help on the warped exhaust repair

[Fiddlebick]

First, I am 65 years old, and still decided to try this repair..Okay I have the old manifold off (passenger side), its been resurfaced on the belt sander, and ready to install. My mistake was buying the new gaskets from an individual 30 miles away. He said they were felpro..now I know they likely are not, and the bolt kit is a little sketchy I think...but lesson learned there. He had them for a truck he ended up selling before repairing, so the story goes. The new bolts do NOT have any thread locker on them as most of the ones I see on auto part sites. Do I need to add some sort of thread locker to them? Does anybody add never seize to them? Looks like I have enough bolts, but part of that mix is a two extra "studded bolts" that the heat shield mounts to. I don't see any problem using them in another location, as long as I have the correct amount in the end. Also, for anybody who welds a nut to a broken bolt..... had on broke just below flush, and when I built it up to a "nub" with the MIG, I then spent over an hour trying to weld a nut that would hold. Sooo many cuss words...sooo many. Finally I tried using a larger nut that allowed me to reach the wire feed deeper, and nearer the nub, so that it finally was able to fuse...that worked for me instantly. Prior to that I was building a weld on top of the nut and it would break right off.

 

[Wild one]

I always anti-seaze / nev-r-seaze the bolts on my header installs. Look up Remflex 6022 gaskets for a high quality graphite gasket

 

[Fiddlebick]

Finally got it finished. Had to re-learn a basic mechanic rule. Don't tighten anything till all the bolts are started. The other lesson that I already knew was when using a mirror to look at a tight spot to start a bolt, you must work from the mirror image. I kept trying to move the manifold the wrong way to get a hole lined up for the bolt....geez, its opposite from what the mirror is telling you.. This took way longer than it should have, but it was my first and LAST manifold project...I'm just too old for this stuff.