Manifold woes

[tom horse]

 Having bought a sports manifold from a place who's name resembles an  outside  area you'd expect horses to be kept,  It became apparent it wasn't well made, leaky welds etc. so we welded up the leaks and thought that was job done. Oh how wrong we were.  Yesterday as we again tried to stop the blowing where the rear  (N°4) flange meets the head  by fitting yet another gasket, but first  we decided to take the whole manifold off and check the  trueness of the flange alignment.  Sure enough both outer flanges where at an angle to each other meaning there was no way it was ever going to seal as  there was gaps where both inner flange edges meet the head of about 1.5mm on N°1 & 4.  So  in the vice it went,  one at a time we heated up N° 1 & 4 downpipes and twisted them to get the flange straight and level with each other. After getting them fairly close (less than 0.5mm gap) the offended part was bolted to a spare head using a rachet strap to pull the flanges in as the twisting had made the whole thing too wide to fit on the studs, it was then   tightened down to pull it in contact with the head, all round the flanges. The pipes where then heated to red hot to relive any stress from the twisting and hopefully get rid of the last remaining 0.5mm gap. 

  After  it cooled down it was then fitted to the head  using the rachet strap to pull the two flanges in ,  inlet refitted  and all tightened down.  It's so much quieter now, so quiet  that you can now here the diff whine. Deep joy followed by *+°$**§%  as the diff will now need to come out.   One last thing if you ever have to do this make sure you either remove inlet completely or disconnect the battery because when the two met yer accelerator cable  becomes one with itself. resulting is a mad dash to fabricate a replacement cable from the cable in an old Izusu you happen to have lying around. 

I've attached the only photo we took unless you want to see the gasket where it was blowing through.

[glang]

Cant have cheap to buy so wasnt worth going back to said shop? I do believe each has to have the chance to correct things and that is when you know whether to use them again....

[tom horse]

4 hours ago, glang said:

Cant have cheap to buy so wasnt worth going back to said shop?

 

 It's not like it's a 10 mins drive down the road and with brexit the extra paperwork and expense makes it easier, quicker and cheaper to do it yerself.  Stuff used to take a couple of days either way  but now it can get held up in customs if all the 'I's aren't dotted and 'T's crossed.   

[glang]

Trouble is if not told companies dont have the chance of correcting the issue for the future sales so quite likely somebody else gets a duff manifold as well☹️

[Clive]

47 minutes ago, glang said:

Trouble is if not told companies dont have the chance of correcting the issue for the future sales so quite likely somebody else gets a duff manifold as well☹️

Poorly fitting manifolds have been a problem forever. A local chap sent 4 back, that was nearly 30 years ago. Finally got one that fitted the head OK, but still had to cut/reweld the collector so it pointed in the right direction.

So it seems the only way to get one that does fit is to do some tweaks yourself. I know it shouldn't be like that, but it is. I do wonder if the ones that are sent back just go to the next buyer. 

[glang]

So youre saying spend over 400 quid with this shop, then work hard to straighten the manifold out and not even let them know!

Edited April 24, 2023 by glang

[Clive]

No, just that they know they are not great, and if you want to fit one be prepared to tweak it.

[glang]

Be interested to know what they say and if theyre going to put an advisory on the advert that heating, bending and relieving is likely to be necessary to get this product to fit🙁

[Rosbif]

29 minutes ago, Clive said:

No, just that they know they are not great, and if you want to fit one be prepared to tweak it.

Maybe you have the skill and equipment to 'tweak' one, I don't and would expect it to fit if sold as suitable for my car and not as a generic fits all.

 

[Clive]

3 minutes ago, Rosbif said:

Maybe you have the skill and equipment to 'tweak' one, I don't and would expect it to fit if sold as suitable for my car and not as a generic fits all.

 

I have the sense to have not bought one! I wonder if there are some that fit as supplied? But all the ones fitted by locals to me have been a problem. 

And yes, they should fit. But like so much stuff there gets a point where the only way to progress is to fettle it.

Some other stuff that doesn't fit correctly include the new late spit bootlids (wrong curve and double skinned) spitfire sills are a bit out, and don't get me started on rubber bushes. It really is a minefield out there. The suppliers probably shrug their shoulders in private and mutter that they can only sell what is being made, and I understand different btaches can be quite different in quality.

[yorkshire_spam]

I bought their 4:2:1 manifold for my Spitfire 1500. I think the most disappointing thing was the way they supplied standard exhaust clamps for the 2:1 Y branch joins, even though there's no way they can actually be looed around the pipes because of how close they are. It needs Mikalor style flat band clamps. I emailed them about the problem, but they never replied. 

Mine needed a bit of tweaking to get it fitted to the head without blowing, but nothing as extreme as @tom horse experienced.

[PeteStupps]

Worth saying, just for the record books, that the stainless 4-2-1 manifold I bought from Rimmers about 4 years ago fitted very nicely and required no fettling at all. Think I bought my own mikalor clamps, but can't remember now.

I do agree that it's worth feeding info back to suppliers when things don't fit or work, but i've only ever done it when noticing an issue soon after buying the thing. 

[tom horse]

 The problem with it , other than the dodgy welding, was probably caused by it not being securely  bolted onto something flat when the flanges were welded on.  Most likely because they only used the outside bolthole as there isn't any other and rather than make a suitable clamp they just went with the one bolt. this arrangement would have allowed the inner edge of the flange to bend  due the the heat of the welding.

  I have a similar manifold to go on my 2000 when I get around to putting the engine back in. I'll have to check before hand now, especially as I couldn't find one for a 2000 mk1 and had to tweek a GT6 MK1 manifold to fit (more heat and bending). I should learn the black art of TIG welding and make my own manifolds.

 

[Tim Bancroft]

Siilar problem with the one I bought for my mk1 Saloon 15 or so years ago....its made by the company that rises from the ashes...think most are....

[Nick Jones]

Yeah. Fit and finish extremely variable.