DIY Explorer 302 Headers

[Muleman36]

The forum member that burned holes in his trying to repair a crack needs to talk to you.

If I'm at the house(vs being on the road for work) I'm happy to help anyone out.

 

[97Sandbox]

I'm a pipe welder by trade... If I had a set of TMH on hand, I'd be happy to build headers for the group.

Or take a crack at building your own! I'm sure yours would turn out better than mine haha

 

[97Sandbox]

One merge spike done

 

[97Sandbox]

Good news is I finally finished cleaning up the inlets.

Bad news is I made a leak tester and there's leaks all over the place. So many leaks I'm not sure what to do. Run another wider, hotter bead over my stich welds? Find some high temp epoxy to cover all the joints with? I'm open to ideas because as-is, there's no way I'd want to weld the collectors on and run these.

 

[allmyEXes]

Leak test them again and mark each leak with a Dremel burr? Then just do a little touch up dot of weld? just an idea..

 

[CDW6212R]

The welds will have to be cleaned up a lot to be able to paint or coat the headers right? The surface around the welds has to be clean and free of impurities that would stop paint or coatings from adhering well.

I think I'd begin by cleaning the welds enough to be sure the headers can be coated. Then leak test it again. I don't know the proper weld procedure for sealing the leaks, I would guess you grind each spot down below the pipe's surface, a pointed depression. Then carefully weld it back up in that one spot, and retest.

 

[97Sandbox]

Thanks for the ideas! With all the leaks I saw, I think it'll be easier to just grind everywhere that's accessible, then run longer stitches on top. That way I don't have to test/weld/test a bunch of times.

As for prep before coating, I'll be blasting all the welds prior to coating. That's the standard treatment my company uses for MIG welds on cosmetic surfaces and I figure if it works for heavy trucks, it should work for these.

 

[410Fortune]

You have a good dremmel? V out the areas that are leaking and re weld

 

[Blown]

I wish I welded more frequently to keep my skills up. I spend more time grinding, fixing welds, wire brushing, grinding, checking, fixing and where appropriate, final sanding.

 

[97Sandbox]

I did a lot more grinding and re-welding last night. Follow up leak test shows minimal improvement. MIG is clearly not the right process for the job and my welding skillset is far too narrow to overcome the challenge.

Since I don't have a TIG machine or any experience with TIG (and my welding expert coworker doesn't want to get dragged into the project -- I can't blame him), I'm on the fence whether I should give up entirely or go spend $50 on high temp JB weld and slather it all over as a last ditch effort.

 

[boominXplorer]

Hell I can Flux core weld some exhaust like new but I don't think I'd ever try headers. You almost need to check every joint with a light as you go. You try turning it up and go back over the ugly beads?

 

[Turdle]

I would not bother with any sort of sealer that cannot handle continuous 1200 degrees. It will be exposed to pressure pulses,

On the other hand. If you had a tig welder, I know you'd get this good and great. Don't give up,

 

[boominXplorer]

Honestly in this situation practice makes perfect. Consider starting a new driver's side header and see if you can get that to seal up now that you have a design in place. Sure you don't have the ideal tig but the experience you get from trying to make things work sometimes is the best thing that comes out these situations.

 

[97Sandbox]

You try turning it up and go back over the ugly beads?

Yeah, that's what I did last night. Leaks are much less, but still not acceptable.

Consider starting a new driver's side header and see if you can get that to seal up now that you have a design in place. Sure you don't have the ideal tig but the experience you get from trying to make things work sometimes is the best thing that comes out these situations.

I'd like to, but it's getting too cold here to weld outside. I don't really want my Mounty sitting outside with no manifolds all winter till it's warm enough to weld again.

 

[Blown]

What needs to be done to fix and run the old TMH's? I wouldn't throw the towel-in on yours. We have alI been limited for shop space, waiting on the proper tools, materials etc. etc. and had to make do. Maybe put them on hold if the TMH's can be fixed easier at this point.

 

[vroomzoomboom]

What needs to be done to fix and run the old TMH's?

passenger side, the center spike is blown off, and the center is blown out. would have to cut the bottom collector off to rebuild the spike. the drivers side, i think the center is leaking but not 100% sure.

 

[97Sandbox]

My main reservation with the TMH repair is that if I can't fix leaks on my clean tubing, fixing rusty tubing is basically out of the question. That, and I don't have the EGR tube.

 

[410Fortune]

Egr tube for early tmh is stock egr tube
You have the skills to cobble together an egr tube… no worries there


Here are my thoughts thus far

Good drill bit, mark leak, drill it all out; clean. And re weld!

Send them to a forum member who does tig and would be willing to help

There are plenty of “Liquid Metal’s” on the market that claim to take all the heat in the world, could try to seal them up with some of that…. And make another set so you will be able to sleep at night

Wrap them and wrap them tight, that would hide some leaks, run em while uuu make another set so you can sleep at night.heck this time make 2-3 sets and you can sell the other ones!! Put these on shelf to forever be the “prototype”


I would probably cut them off at the first bad weld and remake that tube, Or start repairing welds. My neighbor always says “when you can’t nail it, nail it a lot”
The I would then coat the remaining holes with some high heat metal goo and then wrap them and run em

 

[Turdle]

What about flexible silicone tape wrap, then header wrap over that?

 

[97Sandbox]

All good ideas!

For now, I'm going to switch gears to see if I can get the TMH fixed. I'll leak test and identify any holes, tack together a new merge spike, then have a local cycle shop handle the TIG work. Already ordered a new EGR tube to modify if necessary.

For my headers, I think I'll hang take a break and bring them into work once I go back after my parental leave is up (week after next). I'm betting my coworker will be willing to give me a brief TIG lesson and borrow his torch over lunch breaks.