Most common exhaust leaks???

[scottahicks]

I have a 1990 Legacy wagon 5sp AWD and there is an exhaust leak up front somewhere in or neer the engine bay. Is there a common place where they leak.?

[Apex3]

Gaskets typically, get under the car and see if you can narrow it down to a point. It's either a leaky gasket or a hole rusted in it.

[sleepyninja]

I have a 90 sedan AWD that I just got and it has a couple of exhaust leaks. I found one where the mid pipe connects to the rear pipe, but there is another one up front under the engine somewhere. I plan on finding it when I have enough daylight to do so, hopefully this weekend. I suspect it is probably the exhaust manifold gaskets.

[scottahicks]

I took it down to the exhause shop this morning just for an assesment and estimate. they said that every single heatshield was loose and ratteling around. they said they would have to torch them all off then mabey they could see the joints and find the leaking gasket. They said it would be 40 bucks or so...

I guess I will have to jack it up this weekend and cut all the shields off and see if I can find the leak on my own.

[sleepyninja]

yea all of my heat shields are the same way. I am still trying to figure our how I am going to get them off since all of the bolts are too rusted to remove. Its not the easiest area to get a hacksaw into.

[Legacy777]

Get a die grinder with a cut off wheel and just cut off all the heat shields.

[beanis05]

I second that cutting them off with a grinder and cut off tool is the best way sometimes a sawzall works to. I removed all of my heat shields and undercoated everything they were covering up to prevent rust. You should probably leave the one by the gas tank tho or use some sort of header wrap just in case but i doubt it would make any difference if its there or not.

[#89]

Leaks... yes.
All join points/gaskets after 75K.
Distortion on the mid flange 80K.
Rattling heat shield(s) soon to follow.
Best Luck & Skill,
#89

[keelhaul]

or if you do like me (im stupid) and drive hard in semi-hard snow, and rip your 3" exhaust to pieces. ive done it twice now this winter. first time i didnt know, and my engine sounded like it had big piston slap.
then i fixed it, and the sound went back to nice purring when revving. and now its back again, with at least two leaks around join points. ive seen the smoke.

i know i dont own a suv (and thanks for that, only women drive that here, hehe) but i wish i had more ground clearance with my exhaust. but no question in removing it tho. isnt 14 psi boost-buildup decent, between 3 and 4k rpm in second gear? catless 3" all the way, but i dont know what my turbo is named tho.

[TurnNburn]

I had a similar snow incident in my impreza. I couldnt see the huge rock hidden in the snow... bounced off my skid plate hard enough to bend it and a pointy end of the rock landed smack dab on my exhaust and tore a hole about 3 inches long and bent all my hangers... im still shocked it missed my rear diff. lol. At thank god i had that skid plate though!!!!!!!!

I just pulled my exhaust off today from the turbo back on my 91 SS, the condition of the gaskets was pretty much none existant though, i just looked at them and they poofed into rusty smoke. The conical part of the front of the mid pipe that slides into that down pipe cracked almost completely off!

Also the gasket where the up pipe connects to the turbo just blew out on mine a couple of days ago. *smacks head* i can still see a part of it sticking out which definitly caused a lot more exhaust noise in my engine bay.