Header Question

[Jim Caughlin]

Originally Posted by Mike Pearson

I cant imagine it being too hard to weld up the repair. I welded the evac tubes into my collectors with no issues and they are ceramic coated. As long as the tubes are not badly rusted just grind what you can of the ceramic coating with a flapper wheel then bead blast the area and weld as usual.

Done this a bunch of times over the years for customers and all of my experiments with getting the coating off is less than ideal: flapper wheels just gum up and don't thoroughly remove the coating, wire wheels don't remove the coating, any sort of grinder wheel removes the already too thin used header material. The only saving grace is that the coating on a used header has already deteriorated to some extent so sometimes comes off, a brand new header tube with new coating is virtually impossible to remove. Also bear in mind that if a header tube is cracked (which is why it is being repaired in the first place), the tubing is majorly fatigued and thin so the worst of everything for welding.