Exhaust Fitting issues.

Vince said:
I just saw this on my feed, there were times it would have helped when mix and matching exhaust bits in the past.
www.mxstore.com.au

Ballards 38-60mm Muffler Expander at MXstore

Buy your Ballards 38-60mm Muffler Expander online at MXstore. Australian owned, amazing service & fast free shipping* on over 100,000 products.
www.mxstore.com.au www.mxstore.com.au
Click to expand...
I've got some of those. Very useful for adjusting after market exhausts.
Be careful though, the threaded rod in the middle needs to be changed for some better quality steel if you intend applying a lot of force.

The only thing that might be Australian owned is the seller.

Paul
 
Yes I need something like that to fit a certain brummies headers into original 500 tail pipes. I like the look of the spring pullers too!
 
The segments of the tool are held together with rubber O-rings. I reckon if you got the pipe cherry red, the O-rings would become a single use item. Also, the tool would act as a heat sink and suck the heat out of the pipe pretty quickly.

The tool might work if you use a rattle gun to tighten the draw bolt, but I reckon you're probably more likely to break the bolt or strip the thread.

The only exhaust pipe expanding tool I've seen that actually worked had mandrel with segments similar to that, but it was mounted on a hydraulically powered machine. It was in an exhaust fitter's shop and probably cost a couple of thousand bucks. It would expand a pipe in a couple of seconds. If you only want one or two bits of pipe expanded, take it to your local exhaust shop. If they're friendly, they might do it for nothing.

If you're doing this sort of thing regularly, there is a hydraulic expander tool on the market that uses a hand pump. It costs around $400 (AUS) with all the fittings for different sized pipe. After looking at a few websites, I notice that the hydraulic tool has a much shallower taper on the ramp than the screw bolt type. Here's a demo of it actually working.

 
I have one of those expanders, bought 30+ years ago from JC Whitney, works ok depending on the exhaust.
Came in quite handy when I had to modify exhausts for a Mercedes and a Beemer.
Tried it recently on a set of 38mm slash cut 750 silencers, hoping to get them to slide on a set of 40mm headers.
No chance! 40mm slash cut silencers seem to be non existent...
 
Marnix, I didn't even think of the SFC route, had my mind set on the SF style silencers.
Will inquire with Beppi.

Regards
Gerald
 
The tapered plugs on the nut/bolt expander appear to have a steep ramp on the taper. I think the reason they've made it that way is that they're trying to cover too great a range of pipe sizes (38-60mm) with a short, tapered plug at each end. They need it to expand a lot with a small movement of the nut. Whereas other manufacturers make several different size mandrels to cover the range of pipe diameters, and a single expander cone going the whole length of the mandrel, which allows them to make the taper much more shallow.
 
Well they worked for me but I didn't shoot a video. Maybe that's why. And if you need to apply that much force, something is wrong: choice of pipe, choice of tool or increase of diameter needed. You can prove anything to be inadequate if you try.
Don't expect the system to massively increase diameter but it came in very useful for me putting on a new set of pipes and a junction box on my SF2. Maybe 1mm in it.
As I mentioned, the threaded rod is monkey metal and strips its thread. Easily replaced.

Paul
 
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