Stainless hot rod exhaust

I tigged a couple of exhuast systems for my friend Murray last week. He operates a pretty nice backyard hotrod shop. Murray tacks the exhausts together then hires me to weld them up.
He was tacking them with a MIG, that was really ugly, big holes burned thru here and there or at best a giant scab for a tack. I convinced him to do the tack welds with tig, which is much neater, but he still manages to leave a scar that is hard to cover up. You can see one of his tacks in photo 005.
I'm going to try to get him to tack them a little neater next time (less heat). If the tacks are kept very small and the metal stays silver, then I can weld right over them and the finished product will be pretty decent.


Although he has a B ticket in welding, it is just not his forte. He does very nice work overall tho and is great on mechanical.

Glen

I love the cab over project, I suspect that is a future car hauler? I have seen a lot of old farm trucks and I thought this might have been an old COE or REO. Some old Fords also had a dip in the doors windows but more a more aggressive drop. That gentle slope of that door's window is throwing me. Is this a total custom? From your previous posts I would not be surprised!

That is Murray's own project, the rest are customer cars. The cab is a White, I think the year is 51 or 52. I believe it was off a five ton. The frame is a modified 98 Dodge pickup frame, engine is the Cummins diesel from the same pickup.

He works on it every now and then when parts for the customer cars are backordered.

Glen

There's a guy here who has a white just like that. He's got some nice chrome rims and duals on it. Painted it orange...or is it more tangerine. He drives it to all the car shows. I thought I recognized the Cummins.

I had an uncle that restored a 53 or 54 cabover for a car hauler. Those old trucks make sharp looking car haulers. I know another guy that built a late 40's model with a roll back bed, it was sharp!

I was wondering if you happen to know what engine that is on the stand. The exhaust ports are enourmous. Nice looking welds, by the way.

only a guess here, but I think it is a 6 litre LS engine. Murray is in love with all things LS. He tells me they make a lot of power, are fairly cheap to buy new as crate engines, tend to be totally reliable for the customers and get very good fuel mileage.




Glen

looks like an LS1 to me

That's the beauty of the modern era. I'm still stuck in the dark ages. Hopefully the time will come when I can once again afford something nice enough to warrent a custom stainless exhaust. That won't be until I get the equipment to do welds that are half as good as what you have in the pictures. Have you ever welded up a set of headers from scratch?

I usually tack weld my exhausts with a flux cored welder and man i know what ur talking about with the holes and just a sloppy fusion. U can see the porosity ofth weld when you weld them up with tig afterwards but it is very convenient to hold the pipe in place and tack it together very quickly.

Murray bought a hydraulic tube expander for doing these exhaust systems. That device simplifies the process quite a lot. The one pipe slips inside the other so the pipes naturally tend to line up and stay put for tacking.

It took a bit of practice to get the fits just right, but he seems to have it now. When he first got it he was using too much pressure and creating very loose fits, harder to weld and didn't work as well for lineup. With the pipes fitting properly it is possible to do very small tig tacks that dissappear when the main weld goes on.

To answer Mikeymetal's question from way back (sorry, I missed it earlier) , no I haven't made a set of stainless headers for him yet.

Glen