300tdi new exhaust gasket not aligning

Afternoon all.

I am trying to replace a blowing exh gasket. New one ordered from Bearmach. When I tried to instal this PM the exh manifold studs are poorly aligned against the head. three of the top studs are a tight squeeze, the fourth (end) stud (and I have tried from both ends) will not align. See photo. The gasket wasn't a great alignment, either.

Oddly enough when I removed the old gasket the two main long inlet mani bolts we missing as were two exh studs, so I imagine this was a known problem when the engine was installed 5+ yrs ago.

Has anyone any ideas? Thanks

Head has been helicoiled? (Badly?)
Does the gasket line up with the manifold holes ok?
If it does it must be a poor repair to the head threads.

It may be that the bullhorns are not tightly fitted. Also I think I need to refit the studs before trying to fit the exh mani. Is there a way to tighten up the bullhorns or is it just brute force?

You will have to torch the horns to get them to crack off, then it's brute force and ignorance to move them.

Plenty of old exhaust manifolds on ebay for cheap if you get desperate

Manifold distortion

Hi all. So the end result was that the horns had twisted and were reset easily but the missing studs were missing for a reason. They have been rethread. So all now sorted. Thanks all.