Exhaust manifold leak

[Andy]

Last year when I did a compression test, my #1 poston was at minimum pressure. I pretty much wrote it off as a head gasket or poston ring, Neither of which I was really looking forward to doing again. Recently I read a post about intake manifold gasket leaking. I sprayed both of the manifolds and the exhaust manifold is leaking. This I guess is not to surpising to me since I only have 5 of the 7 nuts on the exhaust manifold studs. One of them is completely missing the stud and I know for a fact that I was not able to get the stud to stay in while torquing the nut. The other missing one does have the stud it in but no nut on it. Not sure about that one. Has anyone had a similar expeirence and tried rethreading the holes? Thanks

[shepherd79]

i have one bolt broken on my manifold, and it is just fine.

[Dutchboy]

you can try rethread it but youll probably have to use helicoil to get a good thread again... . go find a nut to fit the stud missing a nut and tighten it up..
a leaky exhaust gasket isnt a big deal.. but more of an annoyance it wont have a big impact on the way itll run at all. unless it was seriously leaking a ton..then it could lean that one cylinder but otherwise it isnt bad

[Andy]

I was hoping that was the cause of my lower pressure in one of my cylinders. Based on the responses I guess not. Respraying the entire exhaust manifold seems to show a small leak all the way across, but since my pressure is low only on piston 1, I would have to agree with you all that the leak is probably not critical. I've been reading about white smoke on startup and since I get some of this it appears that my head gasket is indeed leaking.

[POS carb]

i don't think the exhaust manifold leak would show up on a compression check because the exhaust valve is closed on most of the compression stroke (until the very end), more likely its a valve, ring, or head gasket leak