orange insurance?

[island45]

Tomorrow morning I am completely rebuilding an extra set of manifolds for my '76 2f. I finally got to drive it for one weekend, then It started sucking air and ran rough...The old intake manifold was cracked and between the two I have no good heat riser stuff. I now have the stainless heat riser block off plate from sor, and I've run 1/2" stainless bolts through where the shaft was. I have heli-coiled the aluminum threads and chased the cast iron ones and will be using all new bolts. The machining to the block is good and should remain so. The surfaces between the exhaust and intake are a little bit rough on the cast iron side. I have dressed it a bit with a flat file. What I want to know is if it's a good idea to use hi heat permatex on the sealing surfaces just in case. I don't suppose it can hurt. Does it really work? There is no auto machine shop on this island. I have dressed the manifold to block surfaces by putting adhesive sandpaper on my heavy cast iron wood joiner table and scuffing them back and forth. . They get really flat, and Ive done it for years, but the iron surface in question is recessed. Orange permatex???

[spotcruiser]

Hi Gary,

So you found a crack in the intake manifold where it mates with the exhaust manifold? That's pretty common. You can have it welded up, if need be.

Go ahead and give it the permatex. It doesn't hurt. If any gaps are too wide, though, the permatex won't stop the exhaust leak. You'll know pretty quickly if it's going to hold.

Good Luck,
Todd.

[e rock]

I have a good set of manifolds from an 83 2F sitting in my garage (working heat riser and everything). I'm not familiar enough with any differences to be able to tell you what's involved in putting them on your motor, but let me know if you'd rather save yourself the repair work.

Eric

[Poser]

Originally Posted by island45

, but the iron surface in question is recessed. Orange permatex???

As has been stated, you can try the sealant, but if the exhaust manifold is not providing significant crush to the gasket where it meets the cylinder head, it will burn out again and no brand of sealer will prevent this....

[island45]

Well I'm poised ready to clamp it all together. I filed a bit more and will do the permatex. Hoping with good bolts and threads I can get a good clamp situation. I have two sets of gaskets to choose from. felpro black material with steel rings or the kind with perforated steel sandwich. Any thoughts? I have about a 1/2 hour to decide. Thanks.. I want to drive this thing today!

[spotcruiser]

I have a bunch of the perforated steel Felpro gaskets for between the intake and exhaust, Gary, if you need more for subsequent efforts. Often, though, they will be included in the manifold gasket kit. Hopefully, you won't have to pull it again.

Personally, I'd use the perforated steel between the intake and exhaust (two actually, correct?).

Does the SOR blank plate completely close off the bottom end of the intake manifold from the exhaust? There used to be a version, might still be, that diverted just a portion of exhaust towards the bottom of the intake.

Todd.

[island45]

It's just a flat piece of stainless, and thanks for the offers and advice from all of you.. I got working on some other stuff for a while, but back to it now. The roughness in the cast iron side seems to be old gasket, fused to the iron. I have been carefully abrading it off with a file, just getting down to the light grey surface of the cast iron. The material I am removing is very hard, but I'm being careful. I think it will be gas-tight.....

[island45]

Long and horrible story, but it has a good ending. As of 10:30 pm she idles nice and sweet. No leaks. Installed a SOR rebuilt non usa carb at the same time. Was running a non usa carb that had been setting for many years. Thinking of sending it off to Jim C. for a backup... The new rebuilt carb takes a couple of pumps to get any accelerator pump action. Hoping the rubber or leather cup will swell up by morning and be ok. yeah, like that's gonna happen.......stuff fixing itself overnight. But the big issue is solved. sheesh, I've battled these 2f manifolds for years as i cannot stand any leaks in either intake or exhaust.

[spotcruiser]

Glad to hear that you got the intake leak solved.

So, what's the horrible part?

By the way, did you resolve your fuel gauge and temp gauge issues?

[island45]

I fired it up around 1 pm and the heat riser area was perfectly tight, but the two middle exhaust flanges were spewing exhaust out at the bottom real badly. Here is why... I had gotten this set of manifolds flat for the new manifold gasket last week. The second set I used were cracked, but I didn't inspect them carefully enough.....Then when I took them off and fixed the heat riser situation on the original set, I must have hurt the alignment when I heli-coiled the threads. I even clamped them together so I could have a drill guide. I noticed they didnt line up too well when I bolted them up with the stainless plate in there, but knowing they were flat, I just kept the 5 heat riser bolts a bit loose when I snugged up the manifolds to the block, then tightened them afterwards, figuring the clamping action against the block would align the two manifolds. They looked real good at the top where I could see them. Well, my helicoils must have gone in just a bit off the original location, and when I finally took it all apart later in the afternoon, the manifolds were still quite badly misaligned at the bottom. Back to the wood jointer and half a roll of 100 grit sticky discs and 3 beers later, they were evenly gray and flat. I even checked them with a straight edge, which isn't like me. Unfortunately I had to re-use the manifold gasket, but I decided after all my hillbilly machining that I'd go without the permatex on this last install. The fuel had really gotten to it on the first try, and by this time I felt had gotten all the surfaces sufficiently flat. (I told you it was long and horrible). Sometimes I think it must be nice to be able to just drive to a machine shop and have this kind of work done, but I guess then there might be stoplights and traffic and stuff like that