I've got a fat dent in on of the pipes on the collector portion of my headers and I was wondering if it can be popped out and if so how?

It isn't completely pushed in but gathering from how it looks I would say the pipe is reduced to about half it's diameter at that point.

 

only thing ive ever seen is the section being cut out and something welded in its place.

 

repair... you can only cut/weld them i believe

 

what kinda header do you have ?

 

A while back Willard did a how-to on cutting out the dented portion, hammering it back into shape, and welding it back in. I recommend cutting it out using a Dremel because it only makes a ~.040" wide cut and having it TIG welded back in place so you can control the bleed through (and hopefully the bleed through will be none so you don't interrupt flow). As for hammering it out- use an 8oz ball-peen hammer on a sandbag or a stack of felt or leather so you have a soft, contoured surface to hammer into. That will help you get the rounded shape back in the pipe.

Good luck!

 

take a pic of the dent u can tack weld a bolt to it and use a slide hammer heat the area up and get one pull at the slid hammer and pull it out done this dones of times then after weld a small plate to prevent dents

 

Do a search on 2 stroke pipe repair,people repair those all the time. I think I'd send it to someone that's done it before though cause it sounds scary. It involves pressureizing it and heating it up nice and red till it pops out! Something about that makes me a little nervous to try myself.

 

https://www.piperepair.com:457/dent.htm

If it were me though,more than likely I'd cut out the messed up part and weld a new piece in,I just posted the above link for an on topic option.

 

do something along the lines of a stud welder

weld on some studs (maybe some copper coated steel welding rod) to the dented section. clamp it to a slide hammer . probably be able to take a good portion of the dent out. then just grind off the studs and sand clean.

 

take the header off fill the dented section with water (do not fill the whole thing) freeze the header, dent should have popped out. Use this method all the time to fix dents in RC mufflers that hit the ground.

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by O3CivicSI &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">take the header off fill the dented section with water (do not fill the whole thing) freeze the header, dent should have popped out. Use this method all the time to fix dents in RC mufflers that hit the ground.</TD></TR></TABLE>

hope he has a big freezer
for a good ideeeer

 

i don't mess with RC cars, but i'm guessing the wall thickness on car headers is a bit thicker.

i don't think a single application of FREEZING the header will return it back to shape. water is only going to expand to a certain extend frozen. and doesn't mean the dent is going to disappear right away.

plus you'd have to block off all the ports tightly (collector and header flange port to keep the water inside and make the expansion act against the tubing walls.) and if it is a one piece, 4-1 header, good luck trying to block things off to keep the water only in the dented section.

 

I had a mugen header with a big dent.. A friend who races dirt bikes fixed it for me by sealing the ends pressurizing it and heating it up with a torch. he tapped on it repeatedly and it popped right out.

 

These are all great ideas. Where do I go to do some of this stuff though? I pretty much don't have the means do to any of it lol. I can take the headers apart though cause it is a 2 piece. I will get to it once I decomission my car.

That GASH has been bugging me since forever....

 

I would probably go with the stud welder/slide hammer option mentioned above. That seems like the easiest way as long as the dents didnt stretch the metal TOO much.

 

Another way is to drill a small hole opposite the dent, in the tubing, insert a small diameter brass drift and hammer the dent out. Then plug the hole with a TIG.

It's just a pipe, there are lots of ways, it isn't magic.