DIY intercooler pipe bead roller

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Ben_W

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I can't take credit for the idea but I recently made this handy and cheap homemade tool and it works a treat. There are quite a few examples of this on the net as well as a blurry video on you tube but I thought I may as well share the idea here.
I've had my DIY top mount intercooler on for a few months now. Originally I just used silicone hoses for the piping, with a couple of pieces of straight ally pipe clamped in as joiners. It worked ok but one of the hoses did blow off once coming home from fishing. So I decided to do away with one of the silicone elbows and put in a proper aluminium elbow instead, with beads rolled on the ends, which I ordered off ebay. However, it turned out that the elbow was too big & I would have to cut about 95mm off each end including the beads!
So I thought I would give this method a go.
It's actually more of a 'bead crimper' than a roller. Costs bugger all and takes less than 1/2 an hour to make.
You need a pair of vise grips that you are willing to sacrifice, an exhaust clamp of the appropriate size (2 1/2 inch in this case) and a big washer.
Just weld the clamp to the top jaws of the vise grips and the washer to the bottom, so that when the grips are closed, the washer is positioned evenly between the two walls of the clamp. Then place the clamp over the outside of the pipe and adjust the vise grips so that as they clamp shut, the aluminium is slightly deformed by the washer pushing out inside the clamp. Just work your way slowly around the pipe, forming a nice even bead.
 

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Had to do a double take at the photo with the end result - looks a lot like it was done with a bead roller. Well done
 
Thanks fellas,
I was impressed with how well it worked. Not sure how it would go on stainless pipe, but it's great on ally!
 
Sell that as a kit and I'll be first. Great little intercooler for those of us that have winches bullbars and all other stuff preventing front mount
 
Sell that as a kit and I'll be first. Great little intercooler for those of us that have winches bullbars and all other stuff preventing front mount

Cheers, Al & Gonzo. It's the same micro intercooler that a few other guys have used, I just mounted & plumbed it differently. They say that necessity is the mother of invention & it was in this case as that was the only way I could make it fit with my auxillary battery, catch can etc. I was originally gonna go a front mount, but like you said, I will likely want to fit a winch in future so making a top mount work seemed easier. So far I'm very happy with it.
Hadn't thought of making a kit, but if there was enough interest, who knows! Ha ha. I don't really know if there is much of a performance gain to be had from a cooler that size, the main reason I stuck it on was to protect the engine from compressor wheel fragments. I got paranoid reading about all the turbos blowing up!
Cost wise, to purchase all the parts you're looking at probably just under $500. That's everything including the 6" fan and the scoop. Then a few days stuffing around making brackets etc. cutting pipes/ hoses, installing the scoop & wiring up the fan (my fan is just through a relay operated by a manual swith on the dash- no thermo switch). When I say a few days- that's doing it cruzy over a few beers! If you're reasonably handy on the tools & can weld, the whole thing isn't too hard.
I'm more than happy to give help & advice to anyone who wants to do it themselves.
 

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