Your original strongback should have been much heavier and a few little tack welds along with bolting would have helped. Afterward you could have unbolted and notched the tacks with a small grinder to separate. I would have used something like a four inch square three eighths wall tube. If you can find at least a three inch square quarter wall you might try bolting the flange to it. Drill and tap your holes in the tubing. Bolt your manifold down. Heat to red quickly around the flange to pipe connections. Let cool to black before quenching. Several cycles of tightening the bolts until you get proper seating would likely do the trick. Please note that hot soaking stainless is not good for the corrosion resistant properties. Some of the warping will be caused by the pull of the pipes way back from the joints to the flange. Hopefully you don't have to heat the pipes too far back. Randy
Gentlemen,
I am a novice TIG welder on my fifth Argon bottle (small one) After what I thought to be a reasonable amount of practice and lot of excellent advice from this group I embarked on my first major project. This is going to be an turbo exhaust manifold. Although I still feel much like a novice I think that I was somewhat successful putting this together.
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Other than finishing touches, it is done but it has one flaw that needs to be corrected. The flange is somewhat warped. I fully expected this to happen and had it bolted to a jig and even welded temporary braces to it to minimize the warp. How to correct the flange warp? The turbo flange will be machined flat but I am afraid that the head flange will loose to much material if I have it machined. Could it be possible to bolt the flange to a chunk of high temperature material and heat the whole thing in a kiln? Will it be forced flat or flatter? I can force it into flat by bolting it to the engine head but I feel uneasy about all the unrelieved stress. Than again then the turbo spools up these things glow cherry red.
My wife has pottery kiln that can go over 2100°F
The flange and tubing is 304L The tubing is schedule 40. I know that there are better and more expensive alloys for doing this. This is a learning compromise. Any suggestions would be most welcome.
Regards,
Boris Mohar
Got Knock? - see: Viatrack Printed Circuit Designs (among other things)
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_-void-_ in the obvious place