On this forum I keep seeing posts like this that state as a fact that all headers leak:
“I could still outrun anybody who wanted to GIVE me a set of headers and make me use them!”
Between the ages of 16 and 72 I have had headers on 4 different vehicles, a flathead Ford powered ’31 Ford coupe while in high school, an Olds powered ’29 Ford roadster on ’32 Ford rails while in college, a sbc Chevy in my now restored ’36 Chevy pickup while a young adult and now a sbc powered ’32 Ford roadster in my “golden years” (second childhood). None of these leaked. The ones in the ’36 pickup were totally home fabricated. Even the flanges were made from pieces of flat bar using an exhaust gasket as a template. The ones on the ’32 roadster have were installed about 14 years ago and did require retightening a couple of times when newly installed as the gaskets compressed, but after that the bolts stayed tight and there have been no leaks.
I’m wondering what experience others have had with headers leaking or not leaking.
In the summer of 1967, while a college student, I did have a welding job at Doug’s Headers. There I learned that if there was any warping of a header during the welding process, that was simple to correct. We simply bolted the header to a cylinder head and heated a dime size spot on each primary tube to red heat with an oxy-acetylene torch to relax the metal and take the “spring” out of the header in the bolted on condition.
Last edited by yar; 09/20/2017 4:17 PM.
