I know it is not how the manual states. Put the clamp on the crossover slide back some. I spread the crossover tabs with a cresent. Put the gasket on the header and then eased the crosover over the gasket. Then used the clamp to tighten it down. It is a PITA.

 

Its a pain in the ***!

I ruined two of them trying to get mine in there and i still only got 95% of it in. There is a little bit hanging out the tip of the pipe still but I gave up.

I wanted to post a thread to see if there was a "trick" but other than fitting it on the other end havent seen anything yet.


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Think there would be any harm in putting like a few dabs of white petroleum grease on the inside and outside of the gasket to help it slide on better??? My thinking is it would burn off fairly quick but I dunno if it would hurt the gasket at all.

 

I grease my exhaust gaskets when putting them in the heads.

 

Well so much for that. I succeeded in F'ing up the new gasket. This is freaking crazy that it is such a PITA to get a simple piece to fit. Guess I will be ordering yet another one. Better get two I think.

 

Try this next time. Take the crossover pipe off and remove the clamp completely. Put a large dow rod or pipe in a vise and open the pipe up some. It has 4 relief cuts in it, once it has been clamped they are never as "opened" as they were before the first time. You may have to open your clamp up some more to get it back on if you open the pipe enough.

I had to do this otherwise I would have ruined my new gasket as well.

I hope this helps you next time.

Good luck.

 

That is pretty much the approach I took. I spread the end of the header pipe enough to get the gasket in. Problem was getting the clamp back on. The crimp spacer or whatever it is called kept on catching so I had to squeeze the pipe in a little to get it on. In the process of all of this the gasket got FUBARED.

 

I had the same problem when installing a new exhaust system. Most poeple do it seems.

My solution was an exhaust expander from Harbor Freight. It was less than $10, but it did the job.

 

Ah ha!!! Thanks for that tip. Gonna pick up one of those. So how did ya get the clamp on once it was expanded????

 

Just a little update. The pipe expander worked like a charm. Gasket fit in the crossover pipe and slid right on to the header pipe with no problems. Thanks again to red.heritage for the tip.