Just trying to help.

Everyone always gets on people abut buying cheap knock off parts... When you have something like this it is no different. To each their own. I just wish people wouldnt give others the false impression of what is correct. Reasurance from a clueless person isnt very reasuring.

 

I appreciate that you are trying to help, but making people send their manifolds off to a professional welder for what is going to be an expensive procedure (Nickel rods are EXPENSIVE!) because you convince them that it is well beyond their means to weld it is also imprudent.

The fact of the matter is that dozens of people on this site (myself included) have welded these parts together with no problems and with no special tooling or procedures. I welded stainless vbands to truck manifolds with 308 rod after preheating the manifold in my shop oven to about 400 degrees. And the preheat was to help get the weld started instead of concerns about the metallurgy.

 

I did the same, except I didn't pre-heat. Had no issues welding it. No cracks.

 

I never said he needs to send it off, it just needed another pass on top of the one hes got then instead of being just good it would be perfect.

Preheating also isnt necesary when you are working with metal so thin. Waste of time and because people dont know any better you have a whole following of sheep doing it because everyone else does.

 

From what iv gathered from all these threads is that these new manifolds are more along the lines of "cast steel" new age material not "cast iron" like the old ones and that's why the new ones can be welded like normal. How true this is is here nor there just one answer that keeps being brought up from different people so take it with a grain of salt.

 

Be wary of parts store replacements for truck manifolds though, they are actually cast iron and much lower quality than what you get in a junk yard. Every OEM manifold I've seen is this steel material though; it machines and welds just like mild steel. I'm not a metallurgist so I can't tell for sure what the actual alloy is, this has just been my experience with them so far.

Heating them in the oven was just a precaution. I thought the heavy and thicker manifold material would wick heat away from the weld puddle and I'd end up warping the vband with all the extra heat I would dump into it trying to get the manifold to heat up. You're right, I probably didn't need to do it, I just wanted to be sure.

 

I just heated the manifold up with a torch, mig welded the v-band on, heated the area with a torch after, let cool. Works perfect.

 

Did the exact same thing. Weld looks good and good penetration and was done with a mig.