At 10:17 AM 6/16/03 -0400, Greg Rowe wrote:
>My 78 spitfire with catalytic converter suffers from cracks in the exhaust
>manifold. I had it professionally welded up a couple of years ago, but it
>broke into two pieces within about a month. Just recently I had to put it
>back on for emissions reasons, so I did a quick weld up using my own
amateur
>skills and wire feed welder; it got me through the inspection, but is now
>leaking again. I took it off and tried welding it more carefully, but had
>trouble. There was a lot of spatter and the beads resisted "sticking" to
>the metal. And I couldnt get a continuous weld, the welds insisting on
>"beading up" kind of like water on a freshly waxed car. I tried several
>different settings on the welder with no luck.
>My questions are:
>Why did the welds behave like that?
Greg,
I went through this myself years ago when I caught a raised manhole cover on
the catty-to-headpipe flange on my '77. The weld shop I went to said cast
iron has to be evenly heated up in an oven prior to welding the crack. The
job they did for $40 which included resurfacing the face where it mates to
the engine, lasted about a year then busted apart on the seam with no
warning.
Good luck!
"Any drive you don't return from on a tow truck was a good one..."
Jon
'77 (mostly) 1500 "Ol' Yeller"
FM66043 7U
Nass #104 VTR #14429
www.yankeespitfire.com
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