Small hole turns into Exhaust detailing

[1stbenznc]

I have had a small hole in my exhaust manifold for a while now that was making noise. I finally found a whole exhaust manifold assembly with turbo at the junkyard for a $100

I decided to bolt the whole thing on since I had a bent fin on my turbo wheel and the new/used one doesn't have much play.

I couldn't just bolt in the ugly thing, so I took part of the day yesterday day to partially disassemble, clean, wire brush, sand, brake cleaner, bench wire wheel, and paint up the new one. While the cad-plating is gone I think it turned out pretty nice. I went with an accent color of black for the waste gate shield.

I also clear coated the bare metal with high temp spray to keep it from rusting/oxidizing. The flat grey is HIGH temp manifold paint.

.....Now I have to clean the entire engine bay to match it

Here is a side-by-side of the old one and fresh "new" one. The old one was in worse shape, but the newer one was just as oily and somewhat rusty.