Rod or no rod?

[itsjames2011]

Hey everybody,

Need to weld a muffler onto an exhaust pipe. It's a ID OD situation where one tube slips into the other one. do I need to use a rod or can I just fuse it with the torch itself?


James

[Erich]

If you can get it to fuse without filler it will be fine. My guess is the fit is too loose to get fusion without filler.

[CCWKen]

What's wrong with clamps?

You didn't say what the material was. Some pipes are aluminum coated and won't weld very well.

[chipmaker4130]

That aluminum coating is pretty thin. I've not had any trouble welding it.

[brian Rupnow]

Use a filler rod. It will be so much easier. Without a filler rod, it will be very difficult to get a good fusion weld all around.---Brian

[JoeCB]

Like what was said... "what's wrong with clamps?" ... seems like weld will burn thru whatever protective coating may be there.. spelling rust out. (unless the pieces are stainless steel)

Joe

[vpt]

You can do that one however you wish.

Filler, no filler, clamp, self tapping bolt, you name it.

[boslab]

I pulled my old back box off, it had been there for years, sealed with silicone RTV, the stuff was still stretchy.
Use a rod, watch the flame, keep neutral to even slightly carburising on exhausts with bonus rust, once the sparkling has died down readjust neutral.
The sparkling is the rust reducing to iron again, lots of fizzing and foaming with really rusty stuff.
New stuff is Ali coated, the Ali does deoxidise the weld a bit which is handy as oxy acetylene does add dissolved oxy into the steel if your flame goes pale blue.
All comes with practice, if your making holes try a really wide weave with the torch, like 3 times the puddle or more, it's not pretty but does the job.
Mark

[flylo]

Make fun of me if you want but the old style metal coat hangers work great for this & saves a trip to town.

[boslab]

I've used coat hangers but to be honest you just don't get them anymore, all these plastic things (which I hate with a vengeance), there's nothing wrong with using anything although there isn't a recognised standard alloy! I can see it now ASME coat hanger position 2, overhead etc.
Oddly there is a series of coding tests for gas welding, apparently it's still used for aeronautical stuff, I was told it was for helicopters, or the frames using CrMo tube as the process does an anneal during welding or somthing along those lines, not that I've ever wedged bits of helicopters or for that matter know much about them.
Sae 1006,7,8 comes to mind for the wire, I remember thinking there would be an awful lot of coat hangers in a 30ton slab, but then I realised they wanted billets 10"x10" so we'd have to slit slabs up, bit expensive.
Mark

[vpt]

I've ran out of aluminum filler in the middle of a project once. I had to cut strips of aluminum off the parent material to use for filler.

[boslab]

Cutting strips used to be a requirement for some work, guarantees the same chemical composition in the weld.
Mark

[vpt]

I've also used pennies.

[flylo]

I ran across I bet 100 in the free box at a yard sale a couple years ago & was happy as a clam. I hope the OPs muffler is better than my Dodge/Cummins diesels where the galv the whole thing THEN weld the inlet & outlet on so the muffler is still perfect when it fails. Stupid, Stupid, Stupid!

[boslab]

Our coinage is now steel, and £5 notes are horrible plastic, soon the rest will be too.
Mark
This is the new value
https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=%C...SPVEFs-16EBrM: