Exaust gasket material???

I need to make some collector gaskets ,3"x 9" long for my Olds motor's (394) header collectors, I figured I could just go down the parts store warehouse and get some universal stuff, guess what? NO ONE HAS ANY. They said after asbestos was made illegal, no one stepped up to the plate w a good replacement, Now what? I know a few a few other guys that are looking as well.

 

maybe try making them out of some 1/16" copper sheet?

 

Get a soft grade of aluminum sheet and cut them out of that.
16 gage oughta do it.

In fact, probably any grade of commonly available sheet aluminum would work.
Re-usable too.

Heat at the collector is fairly cool when compared to heat at the flange so you shouldn't have any probs with aluminum.

If you have collector flanges that are not welded onto the collector tubing, sandwiching one or two pieces of aluminum between two collector flanges - after drilling the mounting holes - should make it real easy to cut to shape.

As reasonable in cost as the flanges are, I'd try to find a pair that match your headers at the muffler shop to use as templates if your headers are already built.

 

Thanks, i'll try a copper card/cboard/copper trick , should give me enough"give " to fill in any bows in the cap , the headers are a 3 tube side by side outlet affair I had built - They curve up over the frame rails, come out just behind and below the area behind the front wheels on my 54 olds 88,I don't have a pic of them but i do the cap.

 

mr gasket sells sheets of header gasket material (and no, its not asbestos) part # 77 or 77c.. one is square aprox. 9 " and the other is rectangle approx. 6x12"
felpro also sells sheet material..use the high perf, black graphite coated stuff if you only want to do it once..
good luck
dave

 

^^^ under $20 bucks from jegs

 

NAPA also carries exhaust gasket material with a metal core.

Hank

 

Years ago, tired of replacing header collector gaskets, I tried several things to keep them from blowing out. In the end, I went metal to metal & it worked well enough for me to try making my gaskets out of aluminum - lasted forever - still on the car 8 years ago when I did the swap - had been there at least 7 years prior - no leaks & reuseable.

Now, of course, you can buy copper and aluminum gaskets for exhaust....