Part of the design of most engine bay piping is to have a bead around the rim of the end of the pipes to prevent hoses easily coming off. A bead roller is generally used to form the beads but I don't have one nor easy access to one. I've seen DIY options such as using vice-grips and an exhaust clamp which is suitable for soft aluminium pipe but that wouldn't be strong enough for the steel pipe I have used. My solution was to make yet another DIY / custom tool, based on the design of bead roller dies.
I only intend to put beads on the pipework which is under pressure ie. turbo to inlet manifold. One point to note is that a reputable tuning workshop advised me that beads shouldn't really be needed unless your running "higher boost pressures" although I didn't get this quantified as a specific boost level (15psi? 20 psi? - I don't exactly know) so for the just-in-case factor, I made some beads.
Using some 40mm diameter steel, I machined a male and female piece on the lathe so that when a piece of steel is clamped between them, it would form a small section of a bead.
Approx 1/3 of each piece was cut off and welded to a strip of steel plate. These plates replace the standard jaws in my vice.
To form the bead, the exhaust pipe is placed over the male piece and the vice tightened - you'll need a beefy vice for this to work for steel pipe. The vice is then loosened, pipe rotated a few degrees and then tightened again. After 50 or so repeats, the result is quite a neat bead around the pipe end.
I used the bead tool on both the intake piping as well as the intercooler inlet/outlet pipes and I am pleased with the results.
To make the upper radiator hose from radiator to the thermostat housing, I had to use two different separate pieces of hose and use a small piece of aluminium pipe to join them together. With the radiator system under a similar pressure (13psi) to the intake system, it's also important to keep the cooling system well sealed.
I repeated the above steps to make a smaller bead former in the vice, this time using some 25mm diameter steel for the smaller pipe.
The final result for the small radiator hose adapter bead :
I only intend to put beads on the pipework which is under pressure ie. turbo to inlet manifold. One point to note is that a reputable tuning workshop advised me that beads shouldn't really be needed unless your running "higher boost pressures" although I didn't get this quantified as a specific boost level (15psi? 20 psi? - I don't exactly know) so for the just-in-case factor, I made some beads.
Using some 40mm diameter steel, I machined a male and female piece on the lathe so that when a piece of steel is clamped between them, it would form a small section of a bead.
Approx 1/3 of each piece was cut off and welded to a strip of steel plate. These plates replace the standard jaws in my vice.
To form the bead, the exhaust pipe is placed over the male piece and the vice tightened - you'll need a beefy vice for this to work for steel pipe. The vice is then loosened, pipe rotated a few degrees and then tightened again. After 50 or so repeats, the result is quite a neat bead around the pipe end.
I used the bead tool on both the intake piping as well as the intercooler inlet/outlet pipes and I am pleased with the results.
To make the upper radiator hose from radiator to the thermostat housing, I had to use two different separate pieces of hose and use a small piece of aluminium pipe to join them together. With the radiator system under a similar pressure (13psi) to the intake system, it's also important to keep the cooling system well sealed.
I repeated the above steps to make a smaller bead former in the vice, this time using some 25mm diameter steel for the smaller pipe.
The final result for the small radiator hose adapter bead :
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