Exhaust gaskets

Even after reconnecting the cat delete pipes, I still had an exhaust leak.  The connections between the manifolds and the pipes had an annoying tick tick tick.  New gaskets were cheap and I found the easiest way to get to the connections was to remove the side sills and use some long extensions on the flange bolts.  The bolts were rusted, so I used a little known trick to get them off without breaking.  I took the car for a drive to get the exhaust good and hot, then melted some bee's wax onto the nuts and let it sit 15 minutes or so.  It sounds stupid, but bee's wax is the best penetrating lubricant I've ever used(and I've tried them all).  I've tested it back to back with other penetrating lubes, and it wins hands down.  I got a block of bee's wax at my local Hobby Lobby for $10, and it's lasted for years.  After letting the bee's wax soak in, the nuts came right off.

While you can get the pipe disconnected with the sill on, you can't get to the gasket well enough to scrape the surface clean.  As expected, the gaskets came off easily, except for the small section that I can't really reach with a scraper.  You guys who work on your own cars know exactly what I mean...