Anybody know of a source for new exhaust flanges for a 1.8? Ideally, they would be stainless with a thickness of approximately 1/8" that could simply be welded to the existing flanges on the SS heat exchangers I have that don't seal up as well as they used to. Any help would be appreciated, Steve

QUOTE (srb7f @ Mar 19 2006, 03:34 PM)

Any help would be appreciated

don't know of a source for the flanges, but i do know that, if your HEs are from SSI, only the really early ones had mild steel flanges, all the later ones are completely Stainless, including the flanges ...

so, if you can't find SS flanges, maybe you can get a set of later style SSIs ...
Andy

It's not the material I'm particularly concerned about, but rather the fact that it's very difficult to get the exhaust to seal up properly due to corrosion, deformation, etc. on the heat exchanger flange. I guess I'm basically just looking to build a good sealing surface so that a regular gasket will do the job without leaking. Steve

1/8" won't be any good for sealing. You really should have 1/4" thick flanges. In order to make sure they are oriented properly the h/e's need to be mounted on an engine and a muffler bolted up to the flanges while tacking in place. I made a set and welded them on for a member a couple years ago. IIRC, the cost with shipping was close to the typical price of used SSI's on the open market.

1/8" in addition to the existing 1/4" won't seal well? I was thinking it would be easy to simply grind down the existing flanges ever so slightly and then just weld on the spacer inside and outside edges to get a good sealing surface (which avoids having to mount up the exchangers and muffler while they are tacked together. Any thoughts?

Since I'm a professional I couldn't get away with doing it that way but you might be able to make it work. I could sell you a small piece of 1/8" stainless that you could make your flanges out of. Working with stainless takes a bit longer than mild steel so you might not want to pay someone to make the flanges for you. No one will have them on the shelf so you would be paying for one of a kind handiwork.