Closing AIR holes on exh. manifolds

OK, I needed to go to a rear-dump manifold, so I went to the junkyard and picked up a set off an 80's van. They've got those damned EGR/A.I.R. tube holes. I hate that. They're fugly. Any suggestions? I have a 110 volt wire feed, a torch rig, taps for threading. I need to close them up so they don't leak, and wouldn't mind grinding the bosses down so they don't look like smog-style manifolds.

Sure wish those ram-horns would have worked.....

thanks in advance

 

I used 5/8 fine thread bolts and cut the heads off flush..

 

I was thinking sorta the same thing, BUT, if you want to get rid of the bossesJB weld the threads and touch 'em up with a grinder untill theres no bosses or are smoothed out a bit.

 

They are a pipe thread, tapered. I found some solid pipe plugs and threaded them in. You could do the same and grind them flush.

 

This is far from aesthetic -- in fact really ugly and crude -- but once an a GM 2.8 I tried two methods. One was to take a sledge and drive approximately 1/4" lag bolts into the holes. The other was to insert a few copper wires down the hoe and the screw in smaller lag screws. The pounded in ones didn't last very long before they thermal cycled and shot out, but the screwed into copper lasted a long, long time.

Not saying that you should do it the way I did, but screwed in is better than pounded.

Mine didn't seem to be a standard pipe or bolt size otherwise I would have just put in plugs.

 

They make plugs for those, any parts store should have them.

 

yeah what he said.also what about the ramshorn that are slanted back would those help any.

 

The older SBC's (like in the mid 60's to late 70's) I used P/N 500D Inverted Flare plugs for a cleaner look...

Take a manifold down to NAPA or CarQuest and look in the Inverted Flare Fitting Bins... Some later GM's are oddball and most likely metric, but if you still have the tubes those fittings can be welded up to use as plugs...

 

thanks, all. I gotta go get some plugs.

 

i used pipe thread plugs from the home depot. worked great, little square head boogers and cost about .22 cents apiece..