The Stovebolt Site Forums The Shop Area General Truck Talk Exaust pipe bending

I want to put fenton headers on my 55 1st series Going to swap meet tomorrow looking for some . This morning I went to a local muffler shop , with me furnishing mufflers and flanges he wanted $400 to duel it out . WoW I was an electiican for many years I've ran many miles of conduit So I know how to bend conduit ....I checked Harbor Freight they have a bender up to 2" for $99.99 .. have any of you tried to bend tail pipe with a conduit bender ??It is thin walled and might crush or flatten out ....

Takes special dies to keep from crushing and/or kinking the pipe.

well you might save a bit doin it yourself, depending on if you can get a good price on pipe, how many mistakes you make, and what you want it to look like

good aluminized pipe isn't really very thin walled, and takes a proper bender, can't imagine doing what you'll need with a hand bender .... you might find out if a shop would just supply some pipe bent to your specs and then weld it up yourself, worked for me pretty cheaply .... and yes, even on a good machine, the bends will oval, you might look at buying some mandrel bent pieces [available from most FLAPS] and just get straight sections locally

Bill

The bender is hydraulic

If you are in a small town with not many shops you are stuck, should be $150-200 at a Midas type with you providing all that. I get it all for $385. That's V8 duals all the way. I have watched several videos trying to make the HF work properly. Would not get involved in that if I were you.

When I was running mine I used some 2" PVC made my bends with a heat gun and took the sections into a muffler shop (no brand name type). A few minutes and $90 bucks later I was clamping it all together.

looked at the machine, with practice you might not flatten things too much, but you might be wasting $100 before hiring a shop to do it, consider the mandrel bends and DIY assembly

Bill

You are my new hero!!!!! How easy does the PVC bend, and how much does 10 ft cost???? This is my new weekend project! Thanks.

You are right about small town ,only 1 shop here . Think I'll try the pvc trick , then I can take it anywhere ..BTW is the Smithy's Glasspack still the way to go for great sound ???/ Been awhile since I've heard that sound . FYI the swap Meets here (Conroe Tx. is all about CSB & CBB very little L6s . and never any shoeboxs not that I want any ...I'm just an old Chevy Man ....

When I was a kid and had a Doodle Bug (mini bike) we ran chrome sink drain pipe off of a Briggs and Stratton exhaust. Really sounded like a motorcycle and lasted. funny to think about it now. It was only 55 YEARS AGO!

I think I spent about $12 bucks on it, on a couple of the sharp bends I cut a couple reliefs in it with a hacksaw to make it bend a bit easier (thinking about it you could probably just use 1" and have them adjust for it). Marked the end where I needed a bell for clamping, once I was happy with the clearances I ran it in, took him maybe 20 minutes. I had to get creative because I was doing it before I mounted the cab and bed. To make sure I knew on the bed where it would go I set the bed supports across on their blocks.
https://www.flickr.com/photos/advance-design_parts_co/8129068639/in/set-72157631867396207
https://www.flickr.com/photos/advance-design_parts_co/8129081044/in/set-72157631867396207
https://www.flickr.com/photos/advance-design_parts_co/8129084208/in/set-72157631867396207

Semaphore? Piston rod hanger? 8 Ball? Orange Trim, ball valves, trick steering link? Your good. Nice Truck, really.

Thanks, they are and it is a continuous bit of fun to work on.

wanderer, I like the Thrush shortys on my 454

and Bart, when we kids messed w/ the small motors we used short lengths of galvanized pipe, stepped up in size, nice rap

Bill

I like the rap on the 454 better, nice! I'll bet that bus is the apple of your eye.

maybe the "millstone around my neck" I am really pleased with the Thrush mufflers tho', next thing to no muffling without being obnoxious - welded and aluminized too

Bill

Wanderer,
I have a 59 TF truck ,so it is not the same as yours but some info that may help you.
One of the pipes is the same as the original exhaust pipe. The other was just an 18inch piece of 2 inch pipe that I got from a shop with a flange on it, then I got a couple of 90deg. bends and some straight pipe from flaps, 2 cherry bombs and I was good to go. Later had a shop go over the rearend with it.

Hope that helps.

Bartamos,

I had a doodlebug also as a kid. Simple little machine and a lot of fun.


Weeds

Brad, I like your shop. Has a lot of personality. I really think that piston rod used as an exhaust hanger is really cool. From the pics I cant really tell what the upper portion of it looks like. Did you just tap it for mounting or did you add some sort of rubber shock enhancement?

Looks great!

Wanderer-

From one electrician to another...

I can't see any reason you couldn't bend exhaust pipe on a Conduit bender. 2" Rigid is what, 2.5" OD?

A Greenlee 555 probably won't bend it as tight as a hydraulic exhaust bender, but do-able.

You won't be able to expand or shrink the tubing like the exhaust shops can.

If you plan out your run, and keep your no-dog handy, you probably won't even need to shrink of expand anything.

I don't know, $400 sounds very reasonable for an exhaust. Just make sure the mufflers are WAY back or you will have a horrid sounding exhaust, (but to be honest I didn't catch what type of mufflers you are wanting to use, glass packs follow this rule, I don't know about "QUIET" mufflers)

Ok, I think this is one of those threads that is like opening Pandora’s
Box.
Tubing is normally dimensioned by its O.D. Where pipe is normally
dimensioned by it's I.D. or a nominal dimension. So, is "Exhaust Pipe"
actually pipe or is it tubing? There seems to be some confusion by what
I’ve seen on the internet.
The resto - pac’s from GM give the exhaust pipe O.D. as 2" for
all of the six cylinder engines. The tail pipe is specified as having
an I.D. of 13/16” which would give it an O.D. of approximately 15/16”.
.
I bought a new Greenlee 880 bender when I got out of the service
about 1968, thinking I would get into building dragster chassis. Well
that dint pan out but I have used it for other things over the years
such as axles and suspension parts for midget race cars. To bend
the radius rods and nurf bars and front axle kickup I added
tubing die sets to the box of goodies. I bout choked this past
summer when I priced a 2" "tubing die set". After that I gave
up the idea of bending my own pipes.
The problem I see with using a conduct bender is, that they are
sized for nominal dimensions. The 2" segment for the 880 is
sized for rigid having an actual diameter of 2 3/8" and that would
definitely flatten 2" "tubing". The 1 ½ " segment is sized for an
actual 1 29/32", now that would just make a mess of 2” OD. tubing.
The 1 ½ " shoe would probably work pretty good on a 1 7/8" O.D.
tube and I’m sure you could get away with using 1 7/8” tube for the
tail pipes.
Obviously a smaller cross section for the tail pipe only seems logical
because the gasses have cooled by the time they go thru muffler and
the volume would be less.

The bends for the original exhaust pipe are not that complicated, it’s
just one large radius sweeping bend (read step bend) and a couple
of very shallow angle (single digit) offsets. And those for the tail pipe
could be made using 1 7/8” O.D. tubing with the 1 ½” conduct shoes.
If any one of you electricians do bend up some 2" "tubing" for
an exhaust pipe or some 1 7/8” with your conduct bender,
please post some pictures.
Harbor Freight sells pipe expanders for about fifteen bucks:
http://www.harborfreight.com/tail-pipe-expander-69548.html

And now, I'm out of wind and heading for my noon nap.

Denny Graham
Sandwich, IL

as Denny points out, pipe is 'named' by it's ID, is generally thicker walled than any tubing [specified by its "Schedule" class], and is meant to hold internal pressure .... exhaust uses tubing of various wall thickness, thinner than Schedule 40 pipe, some a lot thinner, if you used the thinnest you might find having your own bender useful for frequent replacements OTOH exhaust tubing is thinner wall than conduit, which is made by a different process of cheaper material

Bill

OK thanks for all the help ....I was just the successful bidder on a complete exhaust system " National Chevy assoc. " Williams Headers ,all the pipe hangers everything , If u want to look it up e-bay 221374238050 .its for a sedan , I talked to them and they are going to swap it to a 1954 truck . They have exhaust systems for cars and trucks 49-54 ,I,m getting a set of Fenton headers as soon as the seller gets home Monday , he claims they are new, never used and are 40 years old ....How can I tell the old ones from new Fenton pops ???? And how much difference in the williams and the Fentons ????

OK! Spent the day working in the cold cold barn, but I’ve got
some samples of bending exhaust tubing with a Greenlee 880 one
shot rigid conduit bender.
Using the 1 ½ “ shoe and pipe supports, which is the closest
match to the 1 7/8” tail pipe tubing, here are the results.
Made a 90° bend which you would use over the rear axle with a
45°bend in front and to the rear of it. The radius is larger
(8 ½” central radius) than it would be if it were done on a
commercial exhaust pipe bender. Although the 1 7/8” tubing
fits the shoe perfectly, without the support of a follower it
flattened the tube at the outer radius and wrinkled it at the
inner radius.
Using the same 1 ½” shoe and pipe supports on a 1 ½” EMT thin
wall the tube just folded after about 20° of bend.
I then switched to the 1 ¾” tubing die set to bend the 1 ½” EMT
that produced a near perfect 90° bend.
http://www.pbase.com/dennygraham/exhaust&page=all
So, without a tubing die and follower sized for an actual 1 7/8”
OD tube you can’t make a satisfactory bend in that size tubing.
The same thing would apply to the 2” head pipe.

Denny G

Friday 70* Saturday 75* so I want be in a cold cold barn , even if was cold my building is 30x 60 and heated , and for a total of $462.77 includes shipping, headers, all the pipe, hangers, mufflers , clamps,gaskets,donuts ,and I want have to buy a bender , UPS has it on the truck headed south as I type , Denny I thank you for your trouble ,good to know about the bends, I though that would work . I also bought a set of orignal Fenton headers for $200 ,not sure at this time (I'll use either the Fenton or the Williams )at this point I'm only about 3 mouths away from sporting up my '55 1st ...

Not too bad. Radius not as tight but a great effort. The steel make~up of the EMT is probably a softer mix. Must of been real cold in that barn. Tough guy!

I've got this need to know thing about me and I've needed to
know if I could use that one-shot bender to bend my own pipes.

I've had a real frustrating experience with finding people that
will bend them the way I want them or vendors that stock them.
Who did you end up getting the pipes from, seems suppliers for
these trucks are getting real hard to find.

I wrote to Walker Exhaust Systems a couple of years ago
suggesting that they look into re-producing the systems for the
AD truck. Tried to make the point that because of their
popularity today and the large number that were produced between
1947 and '55 that there is a substantial market again.
Never even got a line back from them.
DG

I almost give up finding any , on e-bay looking at Chevy cars , I came across the complete system ,looked up National Chevy Assoc. on the net & they sell systems for both autos & trucks '49'54 . for $600.00 Called them to see if I won the bid would they swap it out for a truck system . was ok with them, I won for $380.00 shipping $60.00 .this is the only thing they sell for trucks .they have some type of no reserve every mouth , The muffler shop here wanted $350 at the low end and pro. more ...with me furnishing ,mufflers,flanges & headers ...there phone no. National Chevy Assoc. 651-778-9522 ..UPS will b here Monday ., these folks seem ready to help in any way ....

It's been several years since I've been there but over the years
I've tried several times to buy items from the National Chevy
Association and there was always something about having to join
or that you had to be a member or something along those lines
in order to buy from them.
Maybe that's changed now?

Denny Graham
Sandwich, IL

Deve,

Saw your question on the hangers I missed previously. Both hangers are tightened against a rubber pad. On the one I just put a longer bolt to replace the original and drilled the frame. On the other I shortened it for fit and heli-arc'd a nut to the shank to run the bolt into.

And to wrap it up, here's the an attempt to bend the
2" head pipe material in a Greenlee 880 one-shot
bender using the 1 1/2" rigid shoe (1.9" actual):
http://www.pbase.com/dennygraham/image/154650700
Began to wrinkle almost immediately.
Denny Graham
Sandwich, IL

I would bet if you fill the pipe with sand and really compact it, then weld or seal the end shut, it will bend just fine. Thats what I read on other sites. I would think the sand needs to 100% dry so it will really flow.

Joe

I've tried that years ago Joe. That idea has been around for
many years and it doesn't work without heat because the sand
really won't keep the inner and outer radius from collapsing
and forcing the edges out. The best example I can think of is
to fill a balloon up with sand and observe how it will conform
to any shape the balloon is squeezed to, same thing happens to
a pipe. If the pipe is heated to about 1500°F then the sand
will minimize the distortion somewhat. But that certainly isn't
practical for bending an exhaust pipe and I would think it
would be difficult to keep from getting thin spots in the tube.


I have however filled short header pipes with Cerrobend (Woods
Metal)then made the bend with the pipe shoes. That took a lot
of filler which is very expensive. Here's a partial view of
those headers which are type 421 Stainless:
http://www.pbase.com/dennygraham/image/121521109

To get a decent bend without collapsing the tube you have to
have a follower on the die that keeps the sides from expanding.
Even though these dies sets do a pretty good job of preventing
ovalization you may still get some wrinkling of the inner
radius. Those beautiful uniform tight bends you see in the
header kits call for very sophisticated tooling using a bend
die, follower or roller die usually a linked ball mandrel and
wiper dies.

I have the ability now to bend the tail pipes and I'm waiting
for an answer form Greenlee on a 2" die set for my 782 bender.
I've also been in touch with Mittler Bros. for a 2" die set that
will work in my Greenlee bender.

So, many or should I say most are saying, why in the world does
this idiot want to bend his own pipes???? #1 I've got the
bender. #2 what I well save on having pipes bent for a couple
of trucks will pay for the 2" die set that I'm missing from the
782 set of dies. #3 Is simply that I get a boost out of doing
things my self and doing them the way I want them done. Guess
you could say I'm a control freak.
DG

I wondered about that Denny, I have read that for years but never really seen any results from it. I usually just buy a few mandrel bends and straight pipe to built my systems. A bender would be real handy sometimes and for sure would be cheaper if you already had one.

Joe

We used sand filling to control the bends in tubing for building sail planes and restoring antique planes.

It works really well in thin wall tubing.

The procedure is to plug one end with a piece of dowel and cross bolt. pour in fine sand and remove all the air and pack it tight, then plug the end by driving a dowel in hard and cross bolt.

You can bend the smooth bends, no wrinkles, no ovaling.

Lots of examples on youtube Jim, sand with heat and cold by
freezing with water. All I've seen it done on is on small
diameter stuff. The smaller the better like brake and fuel
lines or hand bending conduct. Gets tricky when you get over
one or one and a quarter inch thin walled stuff.

I've tried the sand thing in years past and found it cumbersome,
time consuming and I didn't end up with decent bends on tube
the size of exhaust tubing. Give it a try and let us know how
it works.
In the mean time I'm stickin' with compression dies in
a hydraulic bender for the big stuff.
DG