Saturday I went on a 4 hour ride and when I was about a half mile from home my '96 Xplorer 300 4x4 started making all kinds of noise. It sounded like I was running no pipe at all. Sure enough the nuts had backed off of the studs holding the pipe onto the manifold. Upon further inspection the gasket between the manifold and the pipe was charred, lifeless and basically nonexistant.

This was an easy fix (about $7 for the gasket and some loctite), but I am curious. Has this happened to anyone else? I don't ride it hard, and I think the original owner took relatively good care of it.

Let me know what you think...

Spanky '96 Xplorer 300 4x4