So I have a customer that brought me a 49 Ford F-1 with a Lincoln flathead V12 in it and wants me to run new exhaust for him...my only hangup is trying to find flanges to bolt up to the manifolds. I can get the universal 2 bolt flanges with the elongated bolt holes but I cannot seem to source any with a small enough pipe diameter. He wants to run 2" pipe on this thing and all of the flanges I can find all have a diameter of no smaller than 2 1/4". I know that to some of you that may not seem like much, but when the pipe on the flange is bigger than the diameter of the gasket it tends to lead to blown out gaskets and comebacks. The outlet diameter on these old manifolds is mighty small and it needs to be a flat flange. I struck out with all of the exhaust suppliers I could get ahold of today, but I was wondering if any of my fellow HAMBers know a place where I can get ahold of these flanges? If I can get the app to let me post pics with my phone I will take some of the outlet of the manifold. Jon
i think it would be better/faster/easier/cheaper to just make some some 3/8" flat plate , a hole saw and a band saw and you are done
Flat plate and hole saw we have, band saw we dont have, but we do have a torch...I reckon we could just cut them out with a torch and clean up the edges on a grinder. I dont know why I didnt think of that to begin with....brain fart!
Make some templates from 1/4" plywood and take them to a guy who does flame cutting. They will clean up a lot easier than using a torch
I just spent an hour with the torch, hole saw, die grinder, and my drill and I made up a pretty decent little flange. Again, if I could get pics to post from my phone I would show you what I came up with. It is a little rough, but this was just a trial part. It turned out a lot better than I thought. The edges cleaned up real well with the grinder, and some time spent on the belt sander will get the shape a lot better. Overall I am pretty pleased with myself. Thanks for the suggestions guys!
I had a friend make me a set for my exhaust. I bolted them on the engine block and spot welded them in place. See pictures Frenchy
Frenchy, I was referring to the flanges on the outlet side of the stock exhaust manifolds. I told him it would be cooler to make some headers for it but he decided to go with the stock manifolds. I spent a good bit of time today refining me initial design from last night and made a decent pair of flanges today. I think they came out pretty dang good for having to cut them out with a torch free-handed and finalize the shape on the belt sander. Take a look at the picture...they arent perfect but they will work for sure.
I have made my flanges with the cutting torch for years. I also cut header flanges with the torch. Lee
It is a pity I don't live in the states. I myself own/built my own plasma/oxy manual cutter which works well with exhaust templates. Refer to the pic. You can just see it in the bottom right corner of the pic. If you are interested here is a link to the build of it on another forum. http://www.projectsinmetal.com/forum/metalworking-projects/home-made-manual-cnc-plasmaoxy-cutter/ Mtw fdu.
So the flanges I made came out perfect and fit like a champ. Here are some pics of them installed and the exhaust we built for the customer with Smithy's mufflers. (note: I did not do the welding on this job, so don't tell me I suck at welding LOL)
You can always trace out the flanges on paper...get the drawing as accurate as possible and then find a guy with a cnc plasma machine. Many can scan the drawing and convert it into a cut path. Here is a machine I will be demonstrating at the Sema show in the Hypertherm plasma booth....note the variety of flanges that have been cut...these will be cut live at the show. Jim Colt
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