[1967_Red_Stang]

The exhaust headers on my 67 Stang are rusty and I was planning on removing them and painting them. Anyone has tips on the best way to take them off and, more important, what is the best way to clean and paint the headers?

[andrewmp6]

They are manifolds not headers they are different.To clean them a wire brush or sand blaster will take the rust off.Paint make sure its high temp and its not gonna last long.If you want them to look painted for a long time powder coating will last a long time.

[1967_Red_Stang]

Thank you for the correction and the advice. For my education can you tell me what is the difference? I heard guys refer to them as headers and as manifolds?

[Ivy66GT]

The best cleaning of manifolds I have experienced is to have your local machine shop hot tank them. They will come back spotless - except being bare metal they will rust quickly. To take care of that brush them with Rustoleum BBQ Black which comes in quarts at WalMart. Sounds odd, I know, but its cheap and easy. I was skeptical also until I finally tried it. When first used they will smoke and smell but once that quickly burns off the paint looks a lot like gray cast iron. This stuff is good for 1200F unlike the 'high temp' engine paints that only do maybe 500F. The BBQ black holds up fairly well. If they get a ding, just brush on some more BBQ black and it blends in and looks good again. You will be hard pressed to find anything that looks so good for $10.

[66Sprint200]

I just redid my 6's exhaust manifold last month when I rebuilt the engine. I use coarse grit sand paper to get the majority of the rust off. Then I used Duplicolor 1500 degree silver paint to make it look nice. 1 month later and my manifold still looks like it did when I painted it.

[66 restomod]

My funny header paint story:
We installed new Tri-Y headers on the new engine and I assumed they had been painted with high temp paint. About 2 minutes into the first start doing the cam break in, there was a HUGH cloud of smoke and soot coming from everywhere in the engine compartment. I ran as fast as I could, jumped in the car and shut it down. Thought the engine was on fire!
It was was just the paint burning off the new headers.
Broke the cam in and then removed the headers, sanded and sprayed with 1500 degree Duplicolor black paint.
Still looks good.

Good Luck and Be Safe
Ron
Christophers 66 Mustang Restoration and Modification

[fastbck65]

For easy rust removal get some Muriatic Acid at you local hardware store and brush on your manifolds. Keep a water hose handy and rinse them right away. Dry quickly and apply one of the paints suggested above. The cheapest would be the BBQ black.

Also if you have a big turkey fryer and some citric acid, you can boil them in citric acid and water mixture for about an hour as well.

Although both the BBQ black from Rustoleum and high temp duplicolor hold up well you can make the choice yourself.

[jspagna1]

I would have them Powder Coated and call it a day. Will last for a looong time.

[RF Mustang]

Some good ideas here. I've heard many times before that the bar-b-que grill black works well. Here is my 2-cents worth.
I bought a set of used hipo exhuast manifolds for my 66 ragtop. I sand blasted them clean from all rust. I bought the high exhaust manifold cast paint (VHT) for O'reilys Autoparts.

I properly applied 2 coats and followed the "baking instructions" on the can as instructed. Except, i used my Bar-b-que grill instead of my wifes oven. They turned out absolutly beautiful. This is 6 months ago and they looks as good today as when I first did them.

[Shnate]

I had really rusty exhaust manifolds as well. I dealt with it by sandblasting them very thoroughly and then painting them with this awesome stove paint i found laying around in the garage. It sounds weird, like "stove paint??? " but surprisingly it looks just like cast iron and it is good for like 1200 or 1500 degrees. I don't know about the durability yet though. I used a brand called stove brite and i used the metallic black color. When a friend was looking at the engine he said, "i see you got new manifolds"

[andrewmp6]

Manifolds are cast iron and came on the cars stock.A header is steel or stainless with a pipe from each exhaust port to a collector they are longer and give you power.

[1967_Red_Stang]

Thank you all for the great suggestions and the info, I cannot wait to get these rusty manifolds painted.