I have an exhaust leak at the front smog tope on my 72 240. What is the best way to fix it. The tub is cracked right by the nut on the manifold.

A little JB Weld might help, no?

Vicky

That was my first thought. I was thinking about trying to remove the smog port and putting a bolt in the hole

What is the best way to fix it.

Trash the old stock manifold and buy a header. That is truly the quickest way to fix it.

The cheapest way is the one that takes the longest to do. (I don't think JB Weld will hold as a permanent fix) Take you manifold off, cut the air tubes off at the nut. You may try to unscrew the nuts with a pair of vise-grips and a table vise (to hold the manifold), but most likely they'll be rusted in there real good. Take a drill and drill them out, then re-tap the holes to accept flush-mount pipe plugs that you can buy at Home Depot or Lowe's.

Those air tube fittings can be a real PITA to remove after all that rusting like kmack said. I put mine in a vise and had to do all sorts of things to get them all free(soaked with kroil for days, heated with propane, wax(bad idea, don't do it), brute force on a flare nut wrench). The holes left behind are threaded for some sort of BSP fitting which is nearly impossible to find without specially ordering it. Drill and retap as said above.

The wax 'trick' was a bad idea in this case because the wax glued itself to the super rough casting of the manifold making it difficult to get it all off. When I fired the engine up I was greeted by smoke from the engine compartment for many days as the wax slowly burned off. The trick wasn't worth the result.

I've been told headers result in a significant engine note volume increase in the passenger compartment, take that as you will.

I wouuld like to put a header on but funds are limited right now and I am looking for a quick fix. With my luck if I try to remove the manifold one of the studs will break. If any one wants to donate a header to my cause that would be great

Since you are on a limited budget, just crimp off the smog air pipe and weld both ends shut.