Mark: Hi, it's Mark Bossert. I'm here with Bernie Pawlik, Pawlik Automotive in Vancouver, BC, Canada. Vancouver's best auto service experience. 24 times, 25 times their customers have voted them the best auto service place in Vancouver. We're talking cars. How you doing Bernie?
Bernie: Doing very well.
Mark: So today we're talking about an F 150 that had an exhaust problem. What was going on with this vehicle?
Bernie: Yeah. So this is a 2016 3.5 litre EcoBoost F150. There was a ticking sound from the engine. Diagnosed it, looked at it, found it was an exhaust leak from the rear of the left exhaust manifold where it bolts under the cylinder head. So proceeded to authorize the job, proceeded to take everything apart. And we found some interesting things and an interesting repair solution.
Mark: Okay. Let's do some pictures. So here's our vehicle. Nice looking truck.

Bernie: It is.
Mark: And this is the engine.

Bernie: This is the engine bay. The 3.5 litre EcoBoost engine, which basically is a twin turbocharged engine. And so they, guess Ford decided, let's get some better fuel economy and efficiency by using a turbocharged engine, smaller displacement. And then when you need the power, or it's got the power, which is good thinking, more complicated, of course, than a straight V8 would be.
Mark: And when we look at the manifold, this is when you've taken it off the engine?

Bernie: Yeah. So this is the manifold gasket. On the right hand side, that's the rear of the engine. You can see clearly all that black soot is where the manifold was blown out. The gasket and manifold had failed. There was a broken stud as well. So that certainly didn't help the process.

Let's have a look at the manifold. You can see something interesting about this manifold. What do you notice about the rear side of this manifold?
Mark: When you play spot the difference, there's a lot more bolt holes here than there is down here.

Bernie: Yeah. Yeah. It's crazy. So it's the first thing we noticed, you know, we took it apart and go why is there only two bolts holding that manifold on with such a huge amount of space. Plus that's right at the flange where the turbocharger is. So all the exhaust is flowing out through there. So theoretically, I think that would be the hotter area of the manifold.
And yet it's only being held on by two bolts which is absolutely crazy. So we're about to, you know, replace it with a new manifold and a gasket. And we thought, I wonder if there's a better option, have a look at the next picture.
Mark: This is the engine.

Bernie: Yeah. So here's the engine block. Now, if you notice that this has been cleaned up, preparation for installation. But when you look around at the surface, you can actually count out four bolt holes around the centre. There's three bolts around the front, and there's three bolts around the rear, and then one a little further back.
So you've actually got four fasteners holding the rear end down, and yet they only use two on the manifold. So we're thinking, I wonder if there's an option available. Did a little research, and lo and behold, there's a kit available where you can replace the whole thing with a manifold like the nice shiny black one above.

So just take a moment to look at this. So you can see there's two extra fasteners holding the rear and one extra fastener holding the centre, which is obviously going to make it far better.
Mark: So you've got this and this and this are all extra.
Bernie: Yeah, you got three extra. So. Where you had eight bolts to begin with, you now have 11 bolts holding it down on the new kit. We saw that, we talked to the customer and said, Hey, you know, of course there's additional costs because it's a kit that has both sides. Why not do both, do them right. He smartly decided to do that.
The other additional thing about the kit is it comes with new studs and the studs are longer than the originals. And if you see where that red arrow is pointing, it's a little difficult to see. But there's a spacer about a half inch thick, hard steel spacer that goes between the manifold and the nut, which again keeps the nut cooler. Less tension, more durable. So I think this solution should last virtually forever before any leaks occur.

Mark: Is that extender on each nut?
Bernie: Yeah, it's on each nut. Yeah. The kit's awesome. It comes with manifolds, gaskets new studs. It even comes with this really nifty stud installer that I'd never seen before too. Plus spacers and nuts. So you get the whole complete kit. A couple other gaskets we had to buy where the turbos bolt up to the manifold. But besides that, it's complete,
I love seeing this kind of stuff. Cause I feel like, you know, in our work, we do lots of repairs and fix, you know, replace things. But when you can actually make something better than it comes out from the factory, that's always very gratifying.
Mark: Well, I know that they have lots of smart engineers at Ford. They looked at this and designed the engine. Here's my supposition. I just want to see what do you think of it? They put enough boreholes in the block of the engine, then somebody came along and counted some beans and went, you know what? We can save 25 cents on this manifold over all these millions of trucks we're going to sell. If we don't put as many holes in there. Do you think that's what happened?
Bernie: Probably. I can't see why it would be any different, you know, it's gotta be something like that. It's sad when you see stuff like that, you know, that's the classic, that space shuttle thing where it you know, they tried to save a couple of dollars on the seal and the, you know, a multimillion billion dollar piece of equipment gets blown up and people die. It's kind of crazy. You see it all the time.
And I would assert that in our lives we make decisions like that too. But, you know, it's just annoying when you buy a product and it could have been made better.
Mark: And so once all repaired, the truck's running like it seems to look like a great running truck.
Bernie: Exactly. Nice and quiet. And I would, again, I would assert that this problem will never, ever happen again. Whereas if you do that other manifold repair, you know, with the original replacement. It probably won't last that long.
Mark: The repair will probably last longer than your truck at this point.
Bernie: Yeah, I think so.
Mark: So there you go. If you're looking for service for your Ford truck in Vancouver, the experts to see are at Pawlik Automotive. You can reach them online at pawlikautomotive.com. You can book your appointment right there. They'll get back to you. They'll find out what's going on. They'll get ready for your appointment or you can call them( 604) 327-7112. If they're busy, they will get back to you. Pawlik Automotive in Vancouver, BC, Canada. Thanks so much for watching and listening. Thanks Bernie.
Bernie: Thanks Mark. Thanks for watching. Really appreciate it.