Welding Aluminum Exhaust Manifolds
 

Has anyone attempted to do any welding on aluminum exhaust manifolds. I have a set of IMCO old style (round water exit hole) manifolds and one manifold has some questionable water jacket holes at the top of the manifold. Riser gasket will cover, but just barely on one side. It's about an 1/8" out toward the large exhaust hole. Both water holes look wallowed out. Needs to be filled and brought back to round. I am not comfortable installing it in that condition. Other manifold is fine.

Just wondering if it's possible and worth trying to repair (and will it hold) or just try to find another one somewhere?

It can probably be done (have not done myself) but I would vote against it. Figure if it eroded away at one point, there are probably others just as bad if not more so

s,
I have had intake manifolds welded many times. It seems like the worst erosion is at the joints so fixing that should set you up for a while. You typically have to grind the metal away to get to a good clean surface before TIG welding it. Then you will have to have it resurfaced. Sometimes that is he trickiest part because it is difficult to get a lot of manifolds into typical resurfacing machine to mill them.

I guess it depends on whether you can find another manifold for a reasonable price also. I would expect welding and resurfacing yours to be several hundred dollars depending on the amount of welding needed. Picture would make it easier to determine.

I don't know squat about welding, but I don't think it's going to take much to do it, if it can be repaired. It is just at the very top of the manifold and only extends down about 1/4" or so into the manifold.

Unfortunately, I can't post pics here. I am going to call IMCO tomorrow and see what they can suggest if anything. Also, I have a friend who can weld on any metal, thought I would show him what I have and see if he can do anything about it.

most any welding shop that tigs should be able to do it, but as mentioned very limited on where they can get, so if its bad where you cannot see ???

Our local shop does them , $35-50.00 for cast aluminum , they even do cast iron. Did a 351 cleveland manifold for 90, a few years ago and it is still in service.

Thanks. If IMCO can repair it, I may send them there, but either way it's not much use to me in it's present condition. Worst thing, it's not repairable. No worse off than now. Got to try it out and see what happens. Looks like someone didn't want the studs to come out, so another little problem to deal with.

Thanks for the info. If I can't find anyone here that is confident, I may get the name and number from you.