Yet another exhaust manifold issue

Hello!

Being new to Jeeps I find myself scouring this forum daily. I have a 96 Country and I started noticing a raw fuel smell the other day while at idle. Reading here and other forums I see that one of the common issues with this symptom is a cracked manifold. I was looking around the engine trying to figure out if there was a way to see if this was my issue and this is what I saw when I crawled under...




Looks like SOMETHING is leaky. I don't hear anything that would make me think there was a an actual crack so I wonder if it's just a slight gasket problem.

So, here's where I'm looking for opinions... If I'm going to be tearing it apart anyways, should I order a whole new manifold/header, just order the gasket, or don't order anything until I get it apart and look?

Thanks!

My goto method of finding cracks/leaks is to spray a ton of TB cleaner into the TB while it is running, careful not to let it stall. If there is an exhaust leak, you will see smoke coming out the crack.

notamos said:

My goto method of finding cracks/leaks is to spray a ton of TB cleaner into the TB while it is running, careful not to let it stall. If there is an exhaust leak, you will see smoke coming out the crack.

Click to expand...

Yeah, I've seen where people use Sea Foam to do the same thing. Maybe I'll try one of these two things and see what happens.

use the cleaner instead of Seafoam. Also, I use my camera phone and a light to get to places where I can't get my head, helps in finding leaks (that, and a mirror on a extendable base with a built-in LED)