Manifold is.......BUSTED

[shadetree77]

And I was moving along so nicely!  I was trying to get the manifolds off of the block today and all of the nuts came off SOOOO easy. But when I tried to pry the manifolds off they wouldn't budge. Turns out they were absolutely FROZEN to the long center stud that goes all the way through the exhaust manifold. I tried for 6 hours to get it unstuck. Everything from heat to prying. I got the manifold to come up a very small amount. Finally, I decided to just get my sawzall and cut the stud. This worked but when I turned the manifolds over I got a NASTY surprise. Apparently, I pried too hard at some point and SHATTERED part of the exhaust manifold!!!!!

[dpledger]

Prying on cast iron is never a good idea. What you have does look reparable, as it shouldn't be under too much stress reinstalled. An experienced shop should be able to do it for you.

[shadetree77]

You're the third person to tell me that it might be repairable. I didn't know if it would be possible to reform pieces of cast iron like that but then again I have no experience with broken cast iron. I'm going to take it to a highly recommended welding shop that has been in business for a long time to see what they can do for me. We shall see.

[84RabbitGTI]

I had my original repaired by "Cast Iron Mike" who everyone I talked to recommended.  It worked for a while, but it was just so brittle that it started cracking again in the places that had not been repaired.  CIM was sceptical that the repairs would work for long and told me so before we started, so it was no surprise.  I eventually got a hold of another one and spent four months getting it planed, ceramic coated, new studs and heat riser valve, brass nuts and gaskets.  It turned out great but eventually I'm afraid the spares may be used up.  '51's are very fragile they tell me, especially of course the exhaust side.  You MUST install and remove them in a similar fashion as the head, tightening and loosening the bolts working from the outsides to the inside, back and forth, or so I'm told.  Treat them as if they were glass.  I have several cracked and broken ones in my stash.

[84RabbitGTI]

My original-repaired manifold, one of the cracks I discovered after it had been back on the engine for about a year.

[brian.b]

Is there many aftermarket intakes for the 226s...like maybe an offenhauser.....you would they they would be some floating around with all the old jeep trucks and stuff.....would an intake from a jeep truck work on a kaiser...

[boatingbill]

I took my cracked '51 kaiser manifold to a old time shop that repaired and restored old tractors. They said to repair a manifold
properly there is a long process requiring a oven that raises the temp slowly over 12 hours to stabilize the cast iron. Then they
keep it hot and weld it trying not to weaken the cast iron next to the weld. After that they put it back in the oven and lower the
temp over 8 hours bringing the temp down. Even then they have about a 50% success rate. It was expensive so I was able to
locate another 51 manifold and now that has cracked two years later. I hope the Club can find a way around this as there are a
lot of '51's that need these manifolds. Many members don' t know their manifolds are cracked until they hear that "put-put"
sound when the crack is big enough. I was very careful installing mine following the bolt pattern properly, but a 65 year old
casting is not going to last forever. Is a 52-55 conversion the only answer ?

[shadetree77]

I wonder if the fragility of a '51 manifold is so different from a '52-'55. The casting where mine broke off is SOOOOO thin it's not even funny. I never dreamed a manifold would be so thin. I guess that's part of the reason I wasn't being as careful as I should have been. If the '51 manifold is thinner than this one I don't see how they last at all!

[51Deluxe]

"Many members don' t know their manifolds are cracked until they hear that "put-put" sound..."


We'll that explains a lot. My car was completely restored when I bought it and pretty quiet. Once coming back from a meet, it nearly overheated, and since then has been noisier, but I can't pin down the noise. I did inspect the manifold and didn't find anything, but perhaps there is a hidden crack.

[boatingbill]

I looked at my manifold from underneath with a bright light and found a hairline crack. If you have driven your car enough
with a crack, the crack usually turns black from the exhaust gas. I hope there is a solution out there as I don't was exhaust
gases getting into the car.

[dpledger]

It is also possible to repair manifolds with high temp epoxy- several brands are available that will do this. They are of limited value for  large holes or when two pieces need to be held together, but for cracks they can be quite effective. This is because the force exerted on the patch is the product of the pressure on the interior times the aperture of the opening. Although the interior pressure is high, the clear aperture of a crack is very small, so the net force is moderate at most. The trick is to prepare the surface for good adhesion (make it clean and rough) and extend the patch well beyond the crack. Push the epoxy as hard into the crack as you can. This is a quick inexpensive repair which requires no major preparation and is well worth a try. I have been successful with it. May well happen that in a year or two it will erode away, so then you do it again.