Tomorrow morning I hope to get up early and go to work to repace the flex coupling which joins the two parts of the exhaust manifold together. I bought the coupling, inner pipe, and the exhaust manifold gasket. I've heard it mentioned to replace the nuts and studs but 4 nuts would have cost me $54 at the dealer! And this is 20% less than the list price! So, I didn't buy those nuts. I saw they have automotive studs at the hardware store and I could get nuts there but would I want stainless nuts or what? Are the studs anything special? I only plan to remove the front portion so there is less of a chance of breaking something.

I forgot to buy a cross-over gasket. Could I re-use the one that's on there now? I just removed the cross-ver 2 weeks ago so I could get to more of the fuel line clips and I replaced the gasket then? (that's a gasket I usually have an extra on hand since so much work requires removing the cross-over).

Anyone have any other advice for me? I guess if the car were down it would be ok as I was planning in taking the car up there Monday and taking all the wheel off to have the rims/tires seperated tehn blasted. I was expecting the car to be down about a week or so. (bummer).

Thanks
David

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2000 Honda Accord V6 137k miles

1972 300SEL 4.5 98k miles

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