Ok...went ahead and used the RTV tonight. So now the truck is going to have to sit till prolly Sun before it's set up...cold out tonight.
This is a jury-rigged answer at the moment. I already ordered a new header. When I looked a bit closer at everything...the last gaskets rusted out completely...so took a bunch of the manifold (and bottom of intake) with them. All the surfaces are uneven and pitted.
I got out my dremel with a small sanding disk to get off the highspots which were rusted on gasket. Then cleaned up all the surfaces.
Tonight I re-attached everything, torqued right, with a bit of high temp copper RTV sealant. It's on both sides of the gasket around all the exhaust ports. (Now I sit here and think that maybe I should have done intake ports too...but at the time it didn't seem like right idea...well I guess I'll see on Sunday.)
The new headers won't be here till middle of next week and I need to get this truck moving so I can get it inspected and tags on it. I also need to reassure myself that this thing is a runner.
Now some beer and pizza
