Exhaust Advice

Hi all. First time poster / long time lurker.

I am posting here for the first time to ask some advice. I have a 1997 2.4L Tacamo, auto, 2W. I have had it about 10 years and I love it.

I was driving home this afternoon and suddenly noticed the truck was much louder especially when accelerating and when stopped I could smell exhaust in the cab. Exhaust leak, right?

At first, it sounded like it was coming from the headers. When I arrived at home, I let it cool down and did you research. It seems these exhaust manifolds have an issue with breaking and if memory serves me correctly, after I purchased the truck it would not pass inspection because of a hole in the exhaust manifold.

After it was cool enough to work on, I sprayed PB on the four bolts holding down the heat shield. Yeah... Three of the four sheared right off. But manifold looked good. Then I got under the truck (which I should have done first) and found this (see photo).

Now I have a header with no heat shield, a rusted down pipe and cat. I have already replaced the cat myself about three or four years ago. That was a PITA. Then I had to have the muffler replaced earlier this year. (WTF with that rust?)

Should I just replace the down pipe and the cat? Or should I try to prevent further issues and get like an ebay header and cat and call it a day?

And without getting the bolts out of the current header, do I have to worry about not having a heat shield?

Many thanks.

 

Get some exhaust flange gaskets. I got bosal ones from rockauto and they worked great. My flanges are way rustier than that and i got it to seal. Make sure you get a few gaskets as it took a couple shots to get it to seal all the way. Regarding the heat sheild, if it was me i would not run it and if nothing melted or caught on fire i would leave it.