[16v] exhaust downpipe reinstallation

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Greetings, Mortals.

I've finally gotten a chance to pull my leaking exhaust downpipe and
install a replacement. I spent basically all day yesterday breaking the
torque on the rusted exhaust manifold to downpipe flange nuts and studs.
Today I yanked two heat shields, my front swaybar, and I ended up cutting
in half my mid-pipe to downpipe clamp and installing a new bolt in it.

I bought 6 new studs and 6 new nuts, as well as new nuts and bolts for the
heat shields (the old ones were completely rusted and not salvagable), a
new downpipe exhaust hanger, and a new bosch universal 3-wire oxygen
sensor. The new studs are a little longer than the old but they're the
same thread. When I pulled off the six nuts, two took the studs with them.
This is my daily driver so I don't want to risk breaking off a stud with a
stud extractor, so I'm only replacing two studs. Sure, it will be goofy
looking, but I can live with that. I hope I'm making the right decision.

One of the nuts which had not taken its stud with it stripped and and had
to be cut in half and removed with a diamond saw. The stud lost the upper
two of the very bottom three threads in the process, but the exhaust nuts
still seem to thread on to it okay.

In addition, I'm guilty of scavaging and replacing the cut in half, rusted 
exhaust clamp bolt with a similar SAE bolt. I'm hoping to run to the local
import parts place and pick up a proper metric nut and bolt so I will be
SAE-free except for my spark plugs.

Currently, the downpipe is resting on four untightened nuts on the old
studs in the manifold, and halfway shoved into the midpipe clamp. So,
tomorrow I plan to thread in the new studs and torque down all the
one-time use manifold nuts. I've got a new gasket in there too, and I wire
brushed both flange surfaces to be fairly polished and flat. Then I'll
tighten the exhaust clamp and bolt up my swaybar and heat shields,
install the new downpipe hanger, and start it up to check for leaks. I
pulled the old O2 and snipped off the sensor from the wiring harness, and
wired the new sensor up. Man, that steel wire is a PAIN to solder! Took me
like a half hour to get it right, but then I'm a perfectionist. Polarity
of the white oxygen sensor heater wires is unimportant, right?

With the new flex coupling, and the new O2 (the old one was solid black,
is that bad?), and a fresh set of NUTS on my manifold, I hope my car will
run better than before! I'm pretty excited. My "diarrhea" leaking exhaust
system makes owning a stereo no fun, and my low-end power is pretty much
non-existant.

On a related topic, when I pulled off my swaybar, I noticed that the
rubber bushings around it are squishier than I thought they should be.
And, considering the relative ease with which I removed the swaybar, I'm
now considering polyurethane front swaybar bushings. Does anyone have
these and do they make a difference? Also, does going from the stock 16v
front swaybar to a beefier bar make a significant difference?

I've spent more than $500 on my car in the past 4 days!!!
I'm not addicted, I can quit any time.

Ok I'll stop talking now. Bye!

-Toby

--
'87 16v

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