Exhaust donut and manifold paint

[dadsgreentruck]

Hi everybody!

I have a small exhaust leak on the drivers side of my 307 (tick-tick-tick...etc). I think it's coming from the donut gasket. I removed the nuts and slid the flange back. Turned out I had to remove the manifold in order to gain enough play to get the exhaust pipe to drop down. Does the donut kind of "bake" on? How do you get the thing loose? It's the old asbestos type. It's stuck on the end of the pipe right now.

Also - as long as I have the rams-horn out, I thought I would have it sand blasted and re-finish it with Duplicolor 1200 degree ceramic containing paint. Will this hold up well or is there another type of finish I should use?

Tim