Exhaust leak

You do not have to remove the entire assemble. I removed the manifold nuts and slid it away from the head, resting it on a 4x4 block of wood. It gave enough room to install a new gasket. I did a double gasket and used Copper Coat gasket sealer to marry the two together. You can use a magnet to remove and replace the hold downs. When replaceing hold downs back on the stud I used a long flat head screw driver to push them off the magnet. Not 100% leak free but it is 99% better and doesn't back fire very often. I will probably switch to headers when it gets worse again.