What's the prevailing "best method" for welding up XJ exhaust manifolds so they don't crack again? Mine's cracked in a couple places down around the base of the rear exh runner and EGR port. I was planning on re-welding but want to see your thoughts if there are best ways to go about it. It's the original exh manifold. Looks like the pic below.

Reason I ask is I've welded ZJ exh manifolds and they didn't last ...or cracked next to my welds in fairly short order. And new manifolds I bought were pieces of crap, didn't fit well, and cracked fairly quick anyway (money and time wasted!). Yes, they were ZJ and slightly different. OR.... would I be better off cutting out a section of the rear leg and weld in a bellow as shown below? I only put a couple thousand miles a yr on this snow plow rig so I don't want to stick any more money than I need, and it's not worth it to to me to buy a $200 manifold unless it were a guaranteed problem-solver. A stainless bellow is like $20 and should solve the problem for good I would think. Other than that one location, the rest of the exh manifold is good.

What I don't want to do is buy a new exh manifold, it fits like crap ....and low-and-behold it cracks in 6-mo!! What's the best approach to re-welding an exhausts manifold?

Thanks!!

 

You are right. Weld it and it will crack again right next to the weld. They all do, except the split manifolds that go to a Y pipe. If I was doing this, I would use that one, get a Y pipe to fit and put an O2 sensor bung in the right place and weld up the others or put a dummy sensor in the holes.