Just purchased some Hedman headers with the ceramic coat on them from eBay and the attached pic shows they have a little surface rust. I was wondering what the best method for removing the rust is? Sand smooth and re-paint? Would paint even be necessary after sanding? What's the best grit sand paper to use? Any better methods you can recommend?

Thanks!

 

Im not really familiar with ceramic coating, but i would NOT sand and respray with paint. That would defeat the purpose of the ceramic coating. Try a fine brillo pad....


Also, I thought ceramic coated headers werent supposed to rust

 

They are not supppsed to rust. You need to get them re-coated. Somebody did a half-*** job of spraying it on.

If you get them re-coated, they will sandblast the whole headers, to get the surface perfect for coating. Then they will do a hi-temp burn BEFORE they spray, in order to burn off any grease or contaminants. Then they will spray the powder (or ceramic in your case) and bake that in the oven untill hard.

 

Try some brake cleaner spray first, see if it takes anything off.

 

You can try and take some mothers and 0000 steal wool. to them. It will get the rust off and help polish them back out. but once they start to rust not much you can do but strip them and redo em.

polishing them out is only a temp fix. The rust will come back.

 

All very interesting... I haven't received them yet so I'll update this post after they come in and I've had a chance to examine them closely.

I would think rusting is quite possible, since it's a metallic-ceramic coating from all that I've read.

 

Okay, I got the headers, and I can't say I'm impressed with the description (some surface rust?), so I thought I'd get you guys' opinion. Here they are:







I don't know the nominal thickness for a ceramic coating, so I can't say if the coating on these is a total loss or not. Would you guys say I can salvage these or do they need total stripping and re-coating?

 

recoat

You can clearly see the coating bubbling off
Since you cannot touch up the coating, it must all be redone or just live with the rust

 

Will the coating still provide thermal insulation even with the rust? If so, I might just consider painting it with high temperature paint.

 

if you paint it, the rust WILL come back. Spend the money to get them sandblasted, and recoated. Its the only way to keep them looking good, keep the thermal protection, and stop the rust.

 

I guess my real question is should I try and return these to the seller? It clearly looks like more than a little "surface rust" and that defeats the purpose of getting coated headers to begin with. I paid $125 for these thinking the coating was still intact.

Assuming they are worth keeping, how much would a sandblast and re-coat cost and who would you recommend for it?

 

The benefits of the coating will still be in effect for the areas still coated

That is surface rust
Non surface rust would be pitting or holes, you have neither

Also bear in mind they are cheap hedmans
I wouldnt bother to recoat them, just paint and deal with it

Once you get some cash for a good set of headers, then nit-pick on the coating

 

Yep. Get them blasted (or work your butt off with some steel wool), then read this thread I posted yesterday:

VHT exhaust paint: tips & tricks

$125 isn't a bad deal for those. They can easily be fixed for next to nothing. The seller didn't $hit you. I can see as much rust in the first ebay pic you posted as in the ones you posted when you got them.

 

Will VHT paint work as well as the ceramic coating to reduce header temps?

 

I don't think it will reduce header temps much. It's just for header dress-up. But it is supposed to last for a really long time. If you want to get them ceramic-coated, then you should sell those back on ebay & get you some good headers other than Hedman's. No point in wasting ceramic coating on those IMO.

Truth be told, I think those headers you bought were painted with some Duplicolor 1200-degree paint (it contains ceramic), not ceramic coated. It looks like the same color & thickness of the Duplicolor, and I have seen headers with that stuff on there peel & rust just like that.

If they were mine, I would do the VHT and forget it. If they ever rust, well you can sell them. You'll only have $125 + approx. $16 in paint + a few hours labor to get them nice.

 

One of the reasons they might have rusted is because they were not properly coated on the inside of the tubes. I offer ceramic coating on headers (Chrome look and a High gloss black) if you are interested, I will blast them and recoat them for $125 in Chrome or $150 in gloss black plus all shipping charges. PM me if you are interested.

Woody

Woody's Powder Coating
Lawton, Oklahoma

 

I know the headers aren't really high-performance, but that's not why I want the coating... I'm just trying to reduce temps. For that purpose, wouldn't the coating be worth it?

As for the original coating, the part # is stamped onto the flange and matches Summit's part number for ceramic coated Hedmans. Unless it's since been stripped and re-painted, but I have no way of knowing for sure.