Technical Exhaust manifold spreader

What a great little tool.
SBC exhaust manifold spreader.


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You are so right, made my own from a short piece of pipe, two bolts, two nuts. It helps to grind a "V" notch in the head of the bolts so they won't slip off of the manifold when you apply pressure. It is amazing how much those manifolds shrink.

 

Never seen that before....that's so much better than using a drift pin. Thank you

 

The proper use of this tool is to install it on the manifold before you remove it, and there would be two of them.

 

Haa! I have one of those and didn't know what it was intended for......until now.

 

Never seen one- but now I want one.

 

Real simple to make.....

 

Help me understand … why does one spread his or her Chevrolet exhaust manifold ?

 

^ Due to their design, the manifolds can take a set over time from heat. When reinstalling them, they can be disfigured to a point that reinstalling the bolts into the head is very difficult. This tool is used to spread the manifold apart to enable centering the bolt holes in the manifold sufficiently to reinstall the bolts more easily.

 

I just looked on ebay. There's a dozen on there from $10 on up to $2X.

 

Thanks, DP … in 50 years of working on these things, it hasn't happened to me.

 

I just ran into the shrinking manifold issue a few weeks ago. I had never heard of it either, but a friend said it was a common problem on some manifolds. Learn something new every day, I guess, which is good. Since my intent is to use the manifolds for run-in only on a stand I just drilled out the offending holes thinking that slight misalignment of the ports can't bite me too badly.

Lynn

 

The Chevelle style manifolds that go under the spark plugs seem to have the problem more than the ram horns. Fought with a few of them in the '70s when I worked at Hedman. Sure could have used those back then. Never thought to make a set, we just drilled the manifold out with a slightly larger drill.

 

I had to laugh when I saw that tool pictured here. Many many moons ago I ran into the “ shrinking sbc exhaust manifolds “ , I had seen this tool before, but didn’t have one. So.... I bop on down to my local parts store and ask one of the older hands there for a exhaust manifold stretcher. He just laughed, he thought it was a first cousin to a “ bolt stretcher “! I said no I really need one ! I finally asked for a catalog, can’t remember which one now, maybe “ Help” catalog. I showed him a picture of that tool. He reared back and scratched his head and said “ well all be, I thought you were kidding” and ordered it for me! We still laugh about it today!






Bones

 

With cast iron manifolds, it would seem to be a good tool for cracking the manifold.

 

Oven ready!

 

That's why you install them before you remove the manifold.

 

Have a set in my box
Haven’t used then in years but came in handy on many occasions.

hard to crack a manifold with them, as your only nudging the manifold slightly or basically holding it in place

 

Those manifolds are stronger than most people think. But you only have to move them maybe 1/16 inch. I didn’t have one to put on when I took the manifold off. I had to jack it pretty hard to get it to move! Way more than I thought the manifold could stand! But I got it spread enough to get the manifold on!






Bones

 

I had to make one once to install a pair of equal length stainless shorties on a small block Ferd.....
What a cluster fuck job that was....