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 /// [EMAIL PROTECTED] mailing list /// Send admin requests to [EMAIL PROTECTED] /// or try http://www.team.net/cgi-bin/majorcool /// Archives at http://www.team.net/archive /// Send list postings to [EMAIL PROTECTED] /// Edit your replies! If they include this trailer, they will NOT be sent.
