really loud exaust leak

[drewcantlose]

Hi. i have a 2001 explorer xlt, and at idle it sounds fine, and when you give it a bit of gas in park, you hear a bit of a tap, but when in gear and if you give it any gas, you hear a loud tapping from the front, and i had thought it was the valves tapping, but after listening a bit, it sounds like my header is cracked, and its a exhaust leak. I havent been able to see anything, but it is a bit hidden under lots of stuff out there.

my question is is this soemthign that I can do in my driveway? I have done these on older cars with no problems, but with the explorer, things seem a bit tight so i figured I would ask before I got a replacement.

Oh, and speaking of that, any thoughts on where I could get an inexpensive replacement? I could do a Junkyard part, but I wasnt sure of how smart that would be.

Thanks in advance.

 

[DirtJunky]

Any codes pop up like emissions leak?
Something like that happened before to a buddies and it was his injectors not exhaust

 

[Turdle]

Which engine?

 

[1996BLKBauer]

Which engine?

This is very helpful info.

To see if there is a leak, have somebody place a shop rag in the exhaust tail pipe, and see if the the noise gets louder. if it does, trace it to the source, and then you at least found the problem. Ebay seems to be the cheapest for replacement manifolds.

 

[drewcantlose]

I havent connected it to get a code yet. Not too sure, I will try the towel trick and see if that shows anything. I actually dont know the size of the engine, its a V6, but thats all I really know.

 

[koda2000]

what's the eigth character of your VIN number?

 

[colintrax]

The v8 is bad about cracking manifolds, not the v6 so whether its the SOHC or OHV doesn't really matter.
Have you popped the hood to listen?