[jtsilverfox]

Just a quick post here to see if I can get any new thoughts (I commented on a similar post elsewhere and only got a couple of replies).

I'm about to reinstall my HEs and was wondering about that gap btwn the 3 header pipes and where they go thru the sheet metal. I notice in most of the HE pictures, that most of them have these gaps. Is there a reason they're not sealed?

One guy mentioned the possibility that the gap is intentional to perhaps provide a place for water to blow out. But, that gap would seem to be a lousy way to do that. And it seems that it would be a place for fumes from oil drips on the HEs, smoke, etc to enter the heating system (altho the fan would usually provide a positive pressure to keep that crap out of there). Or even just the oil drips themselves to seep in there.

I'm thinking of sealing them up with JB Weld and wondering if there's any reason not to (to hopefully minimize any drip smoke/fumes being sucked into the heating system). I did a few of the gaps on the other side years ago, while it was still on the car, and they seem to have held up in the heat and cooling of them.

Any thoughts? (Kevin, Henry, Craig, Wayne, ...?
cheers, jt