bending a coolant line.
 

there is a coolant line on the exhaust side that has a bracket mounted onto one of the bottom manifold studs. i need to bend it because i dont have enough clearance on my dp and wg dump tube.

Has anyone ever bent this pipe or done something similar? ive never heated and bent a pipe but think i can manage it.

i was thinking of doing something like this.


the pipe in the video is solid steel and i probably wont need much heat to bend the coolant pipe.

Looking for advice on how to bend it.

This is the pipe that needs to be bent.

http://i90.photobucket.com/albums/k2...8-19112848.jpg

I just cut and welded mine.

You need to be much more careful bending tube than solid, because it can kink quite easily. Just go slow and it will be fine, but you need to bend slowly

The old school approach is to fill the pipe with dry sand or salt packed tight and retained with carved wood plugs on each end. This forms a mandrel. Then bend away. You may not even need any heat for the amount of bend you require.

Dozens of people have done this with no issues. Go slow, don't kink it.

If you fill it with a frozen dish soap and water solution then bend it, You'll have a better chance at a ghetto mandrel bend. That's how the bends are done in trumpets and other brass instruments. The soapy solution stays in place without corks and it has just the right amount of give. Try sixty to seventy percent dawn soap and thirty to forty percent water. By volume of course.

In case it wasn't obvious: fill the pipe with the solution then freeze it upright.

So use heat and go slow? My dad mentioned the old school way with sand lol.

I used the "yank on it until it fits" method and haven't had any issues with it, but I don't think it needed to bend too much for it to work on my car.

I cut and welded mine, I thought about filling it with sand and hitting hit. But I wound up just cutting it then welding it back up. Checking for leaks of course.

It's steel. Pretty forgiving. Bend it in place. You can slip a plumbing pipe (PVC) over the end for leverage.

I did the same. I put a pipe around the end of it and just bent it till it was fine.

i tried heating and bending and it didnt work lol. i think because the torch was too small. but i filled it with sand then stuck it inside the base of a engine hoist and got it to bend. it is perfect now :)