The title says it all. I have a buddy that is a mechanic at a Ford dealership and he offered to help. He has his own shop on the side also and that is where we did it. The truck is an 03 Screw 4X4 5.4. Up until this point, I only had the tick when cold and it went away when warm. No bolts were broken. Finally, last weekend three of us went to Columbus for a Ford swap meet and it got louder. I crawled under the truck and the top nut had removed itself on #4. The stud was flush with the manifold. So I called him up and took the truck to his shop. I was scared to death. Anyway, I removed the wheel and inner fender. We removed the downpipe and then hit the studs with a Snap On socked that is for rusty bolts and an impact. They have spiral "teeth". Anyway, all of the studs came out with the nuts attached except #4 lower. It snapped off way inside the head. The stud that was previously (top #4) broken, came out easily with a stud puller. Now to the bottom one. I could take a pick tool and spin the broken portion back and forth. So, we simply drilled a small and used an easy out. My buddy said that if left for a long time with a broken stud, the threads can carbon up and there lies issues with removing it easily. Anyway, I used new studs from Ford and Fel-Pro gaskets. They have more "cushion" to seal off the manifold where it was pitted. I wire brushed it and put it back together. The job took 1 and a half hours. He said he typically torches the downpipe studs off and just replaces them, but mine were in good condition. Sorry so long, but I read several posts where people were hesitant to do this. It is a little intimidating, but it can be done at home.

 

my truck is going into the ford dealership tomorrow for them to replace my passenger side manifold gasket...praying that not too many studs snap off.. really dont want to pay more than i have too..i know the service dept foreman so hes supposed to be helping me out as much as he can

 

I did myself the pass side also, I had only two broken but in the way of removing the manifold another one broke, I was pretty easy to remove the first two ones, but on the third one I spend like 6 hours with no success (drill tap, hitting, torching, etc, etc) next day went to one of my buddies and borrow his welder machine, I welded a bolt on the top of the stud (was flush), and pulled off in less than 10 minutes, put the new studs back and an hour later I was driving.

I wonder if all the beer that I drank that day did had something to do with the fact I couldnt get it out the same day????

 

well my truck went in this morning at 7:30 and was delivered back to me at my office by 1:15 with a fresh gasket on the the passenger manifold and NO MORE LEAKS! Thank God! I had two broken studs, and they went ahead and replaced all 8 studs on the manifold. Only ran me $343.43 out the door from the Dealership. And got my estimate for a tune up - $1000 for plugs, coil boots, fuel filter, cooling system flush, full tranny service w/filter and 12 quarts of fluid, PCM reprogram with updates from Ford, and complete fuel injector cleaning. Not sure how good of a deal that is though.

 

I have recently replaced both of my exhaust manifolds, gaskets (felpro) and studs. My passenger side was first Oct of 2007 and my drivers side was March of 2008. Both manifolds were severly rusted and developed cracks between the last collector and manifold. My truck is a 98 4.6 4X4 SC. I did the passenger side in about 8 hours. It had one broken stud that I drilled and used an easy out on. The drivers side was alot easier maybe 3 hours and no broken studs. I did this in my garage with basic tools and alot of good info from this board. Thanks to everybody who posts here

PS: My total cost for parts was about $400 Canadian and the quotes I got for the work to be done were around $1200