Dear Blindboy,
Yes I too would put the culprit on the U-shaped header hanger
That entire exhaust piping from header to rear muffler is really heavy!
I had missing header hanger, its just not there on the car when I got it from previous owner
I didn't realize the importance of that U-shaped header hanger hanging from the transmission
I had to use 2 exhaust gaskets with copper sealant on the header mating's plate (the one with 3 bolts) because it was warped from years of overtightening
Luckily the cat converter was long gone from the car so I didn't have any clogged cat to deal with. For this car model the O2 sensor's location was at the end of header pipe, so cat was easily replaced with silencer (welded in place of cat)
In the end I had to resort to getting new header, gaskets and U-shaped hanger to cure my chronic leaking header-exhaust manifold joint
Amarin
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