Frustrating "Exhausting" Evening

The Dolomite had a slightly blowing exhaust manifold gasket when I picked it up and it got much worse on the journey home so this evenings job was going to be changing the manifold to exhaust downpipe gasket. These are a known weak point of Dolomite and Spitfire 1500s, which both use the same manifold.

Even better, Spitfire 1500 owner Paul "Bodders" Bodiam who lives around the corner from me offered me a spare gasket that he had lying around in his workshop.

Ought to have been a reasonably easy job especially as the 3 nuts all seemed to be free. The rear nut came out complete with the stud, which wouldn't normally have been a problem, however when I went to reassemble the joint I found that the thread was stripped, what's more it had already been tapped out larger than original.

Rather than come up with another bodge to try and fix it I decided that bearing in mind that this is a weak point on these cars it would be best to do a proper job. I noticed yesterday that Chic Doig had a couple of nicely reconditioned manifolds, not cheap but  they had been ,blasted, crack tested and painted , fitted with new studs and supplied with a new copper gasket, new Washers and Brass Nuts. Paul had also let me have a head to manifold gasket. I therefore bit the bullet and ordered the manifold from Chic Doig this evening. It means the car will be off the road a few days while I wait for it but at least it should be a proper permanent repair.

Proper way to fix it!