Anyone close that can weld small SS job?

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With the approach of the warm weather I got started on correcting the exhaust system on my 89 Alfa Spider. About 2 years ago I paid a shop to put a new cat and muffler under it, but foolishly I never inspected the work. Last season it developed an exhaust leak, followed by an exhaust rattle. When I put the car up on the lift I was mortified by the poor quality of the installation. The bolts used were not fully threaded and were tightened to the end of the thread length, which wasn't quite enough to seal the gaskets, a flat gasket was used where the design called for a donut gasket, and their welding was sub-par. Another issue was the cat was hung too low and tilted sideways. These cars sit low so the cat was literally inches off the roadway. I'm in the process of re-doing the exhaust from the header back and I'm looking for someone that can help with raising the lower header elbows up closer to the body, which will help to raise the cat closer to the belly of the car. The header is SS steel and I have zero experience with welding it. My hope is to cut out about 1 inch of the header tube between the 2-into-1 and the elbow (see pic) and weld the elbows back on. Question: if I cut all the SS out and re-align the parts can I put tiny MIG tacks to hold it together so I can bring the header to someone to properly weld? Can the tacks be ground out of the way as the SS welding progresses? The first pic is the lower section of the header that I want to raise, second is the cat sitting up where I want to install it, the third and fourth is the collector flange that the shop welded onto the header to allow the cat to bolt to it. There's a couple welds shown in those last pics but I think you can pick out the bad one  Attached Images
Reply:I wouldn't tack it with regular steel mig wire. Have you thought about getting a small roll of stainless wire for your mig? You could practice a couple passes on some scrap tubing to familiarize yourself with stainless, then patch up the exhaust yourself if you feel comfortable with it. I've never run stainless mig myself, but if it's anything like stick or tig, the stainless will run fairly similar to steel, it'll just seem to be a little thicker (like syrup vs. water).
Reply:Yes; What you have in mind, can be done.I guess you just need to find someone other than the person that originally did it."SOUTHPAW" A wise person learns from another persons mistakes;A smart person learns from their own mistakes;But, a stupid person.............never learns.
Reply:you might what to use a different sheilding gas as well
Reply:My equipment is at my parent's house in Warrenton, Va.  I need to head down sometime this comming week.  Let me know if you get that thing all tacked into place.  Stainless pipe is what I do.
Reply:That is got to be the worst welding job I have every seen. I would remove everything they welded and replace the ends with 304 stainless and then Tig weld it back together, if it can be removed from the car to do the welding. I am in North Carolina and could repair this if it could be shipped to me. It may not be practical to do this and you should be able to find someone closer to do this repair.
Reply:Originally Posted by rookiemoweryou might what to use a different sheilding gas as well
Reply:can you please point out the bad one.  looks like 6010/11 can be used for anything.Salas Repair General Welding & Fabrication
Reply:That looks like regular solid wire without any shielding gas at allIf you're on Long island and will bring it to me, I will fix it for you. -Steve
Reply:I thought SS needed tri-mix gas... 90% Helium, 7.5% Argon, and 2.5% CO2Miller Millermatic 212... and that's about it... for now...
Reply:Update: It turns out only the end flange was SS, everything else was steel. I thought I had read somewhere the headers were SS and went back to research and found they were chromed steel. So just the one piece that they welded on was SS. Also turned out that the flange didn't exactly match the flange for the cat (not surprising after everything I found wrong) so I cut it off and tossed it. I had an old junk muffler with a rust hole for this car so I just cut the flange off it and used it on the end of the header.The project turned into more work than I expected because when I got underneath to resize the elbows I discovered the steering linkage was bumping the outer header pipes. Looking at the bends of the pipe near the 2-into-1 they look like factory defects because the bend is way more than it should be. To fix this issue I mounted the pipes to a piece of angle, applied heat and force and moved the pipes a little more than a 1/2" which solved the problem. Another problem found was the primary tube near the head for the number 3 cylinder had a crack which I welded closed. The crack was about 2 inches long and I think it developed from the steering linkage nudging against the pipes for the past 8 years. Originally the header is a two piece unit but I welded it all up as one piece for a couple reasons. First because they are old, fatigued and cracking. Second to be sure there are no leaks at any connection points.In the end it worked out well. I re-hung the entire exhaust system nice and tight under the car which looks great and the car sounds much nicer now without the exhaust leaks. Hopefully the headers have a few good driving seasons left in them. Attached Images