Dented header repair

[sprbxr]

What is the best way to repair dented headers?

Justin

[scottb]

Take the part to a local muffler shop or welder.

One thought that comes to mind is having them weld a steel rod into the center of the dent, and then gently heating the permiter of the dent and pulling on the rod until the dent is more or less gone. Then, remove the rod and grind off the scar it leaves. Of course, that's just my DIY $.02. I suspect that some of the experts on the board will have more sophisticated solutions.

This doesn't sound like a big problem.

[markwemple]

That's what I would do except I own a welder so I wouldn't be going any further than my garage. Excelent advice!

[ruf-porsche]

I think that the steel used in headers are thicker than the steel used in body panels. Welding a stud to pull the dent out works for body panel, but I kinda doubt it will work with the thicker steel in headers.

Headers are also tubular versus body panels which are essentially flat. Tubular shape add to the rigidity of the material. You can bend most sheet metal by hand ever try bending a piece of 2" electrical conduit by hand?

[RickM]

Taking Scotts excellent idea a bit further. I'd try to use a screw in dent puller. Ya know those cheapo slide hammers with the sheet metal screw head? You can focus quite a bit of energy with them. Then weld the hole and grind as Scott advises. If anything "over pull" the area and reshape with a body hammer. Then grind/sand/file to a desirable shap and finish.

[markwemple]

Re: ruf's comment. This is why the heat is desireable. That metal and its shape are strong You need to compensate for this and the best way I can think of is heat. TO go along with Rick, it is better to over pull than under pull. Of course the whole idea here is that you could care less about cosmetics as it is the flow you want to restore so you need to try and get the tube as close as possible to its original shape.

[RickM]

Pretty much you'd use the metal working techniques from many years ago. When body panels were THICK. A good metal worker would pull blind dents and then work the metal with various hammers and a file....cause you had some meat to work with.