You know the one, about engineers that had their head up their arse. Cat C-15, can't remove the exhaust manifold without removing all the studs. On top of that, your faced with possibly breaking one stud or removing the twin thermostat housing. FU Cat...
Oh yeah, on top of that there's a metal sleeve that's part of the exhaust gasket that breaks and lodges itself in the turbo, hence the need to remove the manifold and replace said gasket/sleeves.
I break some, pry the manifold out as far as it will go, start to work with the 90 degree die grinder with cutoff wheel. Been there, done that, but not on a C-15. Can't remember exactly what it was, old oddball loader I think, 8V71 maybe engine went in with vaseline and two shoehorns. They design them to go together ONCE, not to come apart in the field.
I remember seeing those gaskets, wondered what the theory behind them was.... kind of designed to fail huh?
Just went through that on our T800. Upper turbo was replaced 6 weeks ago. Thursday one of the sleeves came out of the gasket and killed the new turbo. :cussing
CAT wasn't selling enough reman turbos....
Ah, but if you want to double the fun... Work on a C-15 with TWO turbos. Those have all those wonderful stainless bellows connectors that absolutely, positively will not line back up no matter what. After a certain amount of sweating and swearing they will finally connect.:Banghead
you can always drain the coolant and pull the t-stat housing off. then you wont have to remove all the studs! we used to do a bunch of them when I worked at the stealership. I never thought they were that bad unless they were in a short nosed truck. look at the bright side, its stand up work. way better than laying underneath a truck.
I did end up taking of the housing Mike, it made the most sense. Service manager said they can take the manifold off without removing the housing. I think his memory was a little off. Your so right about the stand up work.
Ah, but if you want to double the fun... Work on a C-15 with TWO turbos. Those have all those wonderful stainless bellows connectors that absolutely, positively will not line back up no matter what. After a certain amount of sweating and swearing they will finally connect. If you lubricate every mating surface and clamp they will fall together. The lube burns off immediately.