Has somebody ever worked with a mechanical pipe expander?
Such a thing that you put into the pipe and use a wrench to expand it.
Are they worth the money? Especially for stainless 16gage?

Thanks

 

any experience, yup, most of it bad.

you can use these for free from autozone and others. i'd try before i buy.

for trying to expand for a first time use, all i've ever done is split the pipe along its weld seam. but never with stainless, may be different.

for trying to expand a used pipe so that i could insert a new pipe, that has worked.

ymmv, tom

 

You need a hydrolic expander to do any good. The one from autozone is just for removing kinks in exhaust left from the u-clamps. Last time I rented one, the bolt was stripped from some idiot over-doing it. My advice is to take it to a small exhaust shop and see if they will do it.

 

https://honda-tech.com/zerothread?id=1548889

 

I never had any success with one either. It would split the piping before getting anywhere close to getting it to slip over another pipe of the same diameter.

I source that sort of stuff out to my local exhaust shop now because they have a hydraulic one.