Ok I had an exhaust leak on the drivers side manifold, well found the rear bolt was broken off in the head causing the leak! Got it out & put a new gasket in & it fixed it! Well now my passenger side is leaking I went to pull the heat shield off & found the rear 2 bolts are broken off! This is an 06 Dakota with the HO 4.7! Should there really be this much issues with the exhaust?

 

I don't know about on the dodge 4.7's. The outer bolts are usually the first ones to break. On my old chevy it was common for the last bolt againt the firewall to break and on it you had to remove the head everytime which ment replacing head bolds and head gaskets. The last time it happen i just replace the manifold gasket with a thick felpro gasket and it never leaked again. I wish i would of done that the first time.

 

I use grade eight header bolts and I will explain why. Our 4.7L mounts are made from vulcanized rubber so your engine actually moves around alot. At High output the mounts flex putting stress on your exhaust sytem and alot of the time breaking bolts.

I changed to grade 8 bolts, solid tranny mounts and engine torque dampers. If anyone ever makes a polyeurethane engine mount that would be your best bet. Good luck.

 

So how did you mount the heat shields using grade 8 bolts? Did you leave them off or do they have a bolt that holds the heat shield on like the stock bolts?

 

Yeah, the stock bolts are junk, and the whole manifold, downpipe and accumulator design is flawed. As everyone else stated, replace them with stainless steel grade 8's if you are doing it yourself. You can get the correct bolts at ACE hardware.

Dodge left out an expansion / flex joint where the collector tube meets the downpipe. To really keep the problem from coming back, cut out a small section and put a flex joint in.

For some reason it's a common chrysler / dodge / jeep problem design problem. You can get replacement manifolds that have the flexible pipe on the end if you want to replace them entirely. Wrangler's are notorious for this same issue. I'll see if I can dig up the company that I got my old wrangler manifold from and see if they have one for the HO.

I had mine replaced after only 3 years....

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I have JBA headers so the stock heat shields don't fit anyway.

 

I tell you what, try this some time. Have someone powerbrake your truck and put it in drive like you would do a burnout. You don't have to spin the wheels but put the engine under some RPMs. Just watch the engine and tranny crawl forward do to the flex in the mounts, lol. The first time I wathched it happen I couldn't believe it.

 

I have already replaced the passenger side bolts and gasket......well, now the drivers side is busted. Hey Blown, where did you order your solid mounts and dampers? Are there any leads on poly-mounts? I really don't want to have to do this again.

 

Good luck on the driver's side if the last bolt is broken. I should be getting my truck back tomorrow with JBA headers on it.
For some STUPID reason, Dodge decided NOT to use anti-seize on the bolts, but GREEN loctite (also called "weld"). This bolt was REALLY hard to get out...intermediate steering shaft and inner fender had to be taken out in order to drill it out safely (no helicoil on this one, too little material between the EGR port and exhaust port to really work right).

Headers were hard to get on with 4WD...but they are on!

Looking forward to getting my truck back!

 

A performance shop made the custom tranny mounts.
Here are the Torque Dampers I've been using.
http://cgi.ebay.com/ebaymotors/Unive...4506.m20.l1116

Thread where I installed them.
https://dodgeforum.com/forum/3rd-gen...re-done-2.html