I have a 08 Alpha that seems to love having exhaust manifold problems. When I first got the truck looking at the service records it had broken manifold studs, so those were extracted and replaced.

Then I noticed increased engine noise and when I took it in for a tranny leak they found more broken bolts/stud and extracted and fixed them again.

Now over the weekend I noticed my ticking is back worse than ever, and is intermittent not matter how long that truck has been running. When I mean worse than ever, I mean BAD. It sounds like the worse case of piston slap or engine knock I've ever heard.

Does anyone know why my truck might like to keep having manifold problems? Is there anything I could ask them to check when it goes in to get it fixed so this doesn't keep happening again and again when I'm out of warranty.

 

Just scheduled the appointment to drop her off Monday morning. I asked to have stronger bolts put in, or even forged studs.

Was pretty embarrassing last night when a guy stopped to talk to me about my truck and the whole time we're talking its going "TICK TICK TICK TICK TICK".

 

Mine ticks as well, 08 alpha with 36k miles

 

Mine doesn't tick....'08 Alpha with 17,000 mi.

 

bolt quality,china made?. manifold warp?.
gasket quality?. surface prep, clean?. bolt torque spec?,mechanic brain power!?

we dont want to think head warp.
im out...

 

Yeah I asked them to use harder and higher quality bolts this time, if not studs.

Bottom line is if you have ticking get it looked at, may be the manifold.

 

Ok so after doing some research it seems the bolts are 10.9 grade, which seems a little off to me. Too high carbon content and not strong enough imo. On the other hand they could be just fine, and the mechanic over-torqued them the last time. They're supposed to be torqued down in a crisscross pattern at 15lbs for a total of three passes.

If they over-torqued them I'm sure the manifold could easily heat up and pop them off. I'm not sure why I keep end up having to find TSB's on my own and give them to dealer......

I'm going to try and talk them into some harder grade bolts all around, and I'll make sure they know the torque specs this time.