Well thats what it felt like atleast.
For about the last month i have been driving around with broken exhaust manifold bolts on both sides of the motor. Well today was the day to fix that, i had the new bolts, gaskets, bolt extractor and welder at the ready, i had planned on the worst case scenario for the last 2 weeks thinking about tackling this job.
I get the front of the truck on jack stands, pull off the wheels and wheel well liners and start in on the passenger side, also know as the easy side. It took about 30ish minutes to get the manifold off to find 1 broken stud, with a ton of stud available to twist out with vise grips.
The passenger side probably took 90ish minutes to complete, not too bad really. The drivers side probably took two and a half hours because things like the steering linkage and dipstick tube exist on this side of the motor. Once these items are moved as far out of the way as they will go, you still have to wrestle out the manifold and heat shield. Two broken studs on this side.
Although it wasn’t the easiest thing to access it is far from the hardest thing i have worked on. My truck has 91,xxx miles on it now and is very clean underneath. I was worries that i was going to struggle with the manifold to y pipe bolts but they came out with no issue at all, there is no cleaning away all the grease to find the bolts, its just clean. It is nice working on a clean vehicle, not that i have to do it very often because my ram just works as it should, another thing i am not use too. I come from a long line of questionable vehicles.
Anyways here are some more pictures of things in my garage.
Was going to post this earlier today but my truck ate my motivation.