So I just bought my 77 Corona Wagon and I'm super excited! I bought it here near San Francisco where I am staying with my uncle. I have to drive it home to Oregon soon so I have been getting it ready for the trip.

So far this is what I have replaced:
Plugs/Wires
Cap/Rotor
Air Filter
Fuel Filter
Engine Oil/Filter
Transmission Oil

There was an exhaust leak around the manifold so I inspected the gasket, turned out there wasn't even a gasket in there! The manifold flange was warped about .03, so I had a machine shop make it flat again. The head isn't warped at all so I put it all back together with new gaskets. There is an inner heat shield that goes in between the manifold and the head, so the setup goes like this:
Head+gasket+heat shield+gasket+manifold
It all went together well and I put new gaskets where it meets the exhaust pipe.
I started it up and it is still leaking exhaust at the manifold!
So, there is this pipe that mates to the exhaust manifold at two spots on the top of the manifold. (i'll try and get some pics if it will help) I think it is leaking from those spots. I put new gaskets in there but it still doesn't seem like its seating right. I'm going to modify the gasket a little tomorrow to see if I can make it mate better, but I was wondering if anyone had any insight to this?
Does anyone know what this pipe even is? Or what it does? Can I remove it?

Thanks for the help I'm a noob to the forum but I love my new Corona!!!

I just did a bunch more searching and found out that the pipe is part of the emissions system. If I were to remove the pipe, I would have to block off both the ports on the exhaust manifold. What else would I have to do? LC Engineering makes a block off plate kit for the EGR system, but i'm not sure if it has the plates for the manifold or not. I'm going to call them tomorrow and see what they say.
Any insight is welcome.

you could make the plates your self out of some mild steel or get a header. If you block off the egr you have to do it on the head as well

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Rob Wala
85 Toyota Hilux
82 Toyota Corolla
78 Toyota Corona
71 Datsun 510

UPDATE!

So the gasket where the air circulation pipe connect to the header looks like this: oOo the bid O is the port leading inside the manifold and the small o's are the bolt holes. I ended up cutting off the o's so it could seat deeper onto the gasket and it seals almost perfect now. I will leave this until I get back to Oregon and then remove the whole EGR system.
After I finished that, there was a loud noise at the Catalytic converter. So I took it off, cut off the flanges, picked up a 1 3/4 straight pipe and had a shop weld it together. Now it sounds nice!

I have the opportunity to pick up a set of Mukini 44's with an intake manifold included. What would I have to do/change to make the switch? Any help would be great!

Welcome to JNC. post some pics of the trip!

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I will take some pics on the trip home for sure! For now I thought I could post some pics of my trip down here. I rode my bicycle. Check it out!

Ummm. I got to this point and can't figure out how to upload pics from my computer.

Help?

Any pics of your new wagon?

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1987 Nissan "Datsun" S12 200sx XE notch
1988 Acura Da3 Integra RS
1981 Toyota Te72 Corolla
1983 Toyota Ae72 Corolla

Refer to above...I don't understand yet how to post pictures from my computer. Can you help?

Look at the FAQ stickied at the top of each forum.

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Alright here goes. This was my bicycle trip down to San Francisco where I got the '77 Corona Wagon!
























I'll get some pics of the Wagon soon!