Today I took off my turbo/manifold. As I took it off I saw the manifold had several small cracks. I also noticed how loose my bolts from the turbo to manifold were, I was able to take them off with my hand. The manifold to engine gasket was also blown.
My questions is: Can i weld the cracks on the manifold? or should i just put a new manifold to engine gasket and tighten all the bolts and put the cracked manifold back on, will this stop the leak? or most of it?
Oh yea I had a real loud leak sound, hence why I took everything off.

thanx

 

It depends on how bad the cracks are. Do they go clear through?

It's cast and I'm no welding expert, but I heard it's hard to weld cast. Good luck and watch out for warpage.

If the cracks aren't too bad (tiny ones around the inside is common and not a big deal IMO), then get some new gaskets and bolt it back together.

Good time to port the WG while you have everything out.

 

Not much you can do except buy new gaskets. You can get the engine to manifold gasket from Napa but you will have to drill a new hole in the gasket if you have an S4. The hole is for the split air system. The gasket from napa is 17 bux.

 

Do not try to weld it!! When steel is cast, the outer part cools much more quickly then the inner. The result is that you have an outer layer that has shrunk more than the inner layer. (This is actually what causes certain materials to produce a tone when struck) If you try welding, you can, by heating, increase the pressure of the inner parts to the point where the thing will explode.

 

used ones are fairly cheap anyway.

 

Exploding cast iron? Wow, that's the silliest thing I ever heard. Cast iron can be welded, but it requires pre-heating and sometimes post heating. A competent welder with a good TIG unit could probably weld it...

 

Or a high nickel stick in the good old arc welder. Since Nickel is a heavy metal they're kinda expensive thanks to the EPA.