Dented Headers/Collector - Fixable? Worth it?

Hi all!
First off, thanks for all those who helped me identify the Gary Wolf Racing exhaust on my father-in-law's '79 CB750F.

(* TL/DR at the bottom)

Now that riding season is fast approaching, FIL and I have been talking and it's been decided that I'm going to be giving him the OEM 4-4 exhaust from my 750C (it was originally purchased as a parts bike anyway) and taking the Wolf pipe.
The first thing I did was remove the Wolf from the F and look into whether or not I could repack it (very loud/ringing above 4000 rpm - right where cruising speed is achieved). I got the can off and had a look inside: holy carbon, Batman! I scrubbed the baffle with a wire brush and got it all cleaned up nice, I'm going to stuff it with some Roxul rock-fibre insulation that I had laying about (r13.5 if anyone is interested haha). It's reputed to have great sound deadening properties and is fireproof to boot!

I cleaned up the can while I had it off. I just wanted to make it a bit prettier, clean up the age and scuffs, etc. You know, nothing overboard. It seems I got carried away and ended up polishing it. Oops...

So now, I have an old, crusty looking pipe with a pretty polished aluminium can; of course I'm going to clean it up and paint it (going with VHT Flameproof, probably in black).
That's when I noticed a few issues: first, a couple of head pipes are dented (about 1/4" at the deepest point), possibly from when i crashed his bike last summer... as is the collector. (Maybe 1/8").

There are some pinholes, likely from age (I spoke with Gary Wolf, which told me he made those pipes around the mid-80's for racing and that someone had grafted on a muffler) that should be fairly easy to weld up once I get the old paint blasted off.

(* TL/DR)

My questions:

1. Are the dents something that absolutely need to be fixed?

2. If so, what's the best method to go about this?

Here are some pics:

- The '79f, wearing the pipe in question.
- Removed from the bike and the can is off. That baffle is unpacked and is about 2 feet long; it goes inside the pipe to the collector!
- next 3 images are the dinged up #2 header pipe.
- A couple shots of the collector
- Finally, the nice, shiny can...it'll look real nice once it's all back together!

It's totally fixable if you're willing to cut and re-weld it back together in spots. Pre-collector would be harder, but post-collector you can remove the muffler where they grafted it on and massage the dent out. Here's a before and after of a Supertrapp I repaired...

I found a local guy that repairs MX exhausts and for $60 he got most of the road rash and dents of of an old kerker. not sure how he did it.

I filled with water and freezed the pipes from head to mufflers
Little dents were removed
Don't expect miracles but it works a little
I've done this procedure 3 time in a row: fill it with water, block with duct tape and freeze. After 2-3h defreeze and refill

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You could get most of the out if you cut after the collector and insert a heavy walled pipe next size down to fit in the header pipes and use a hammer to drive the dents back, it would also give a good access point to fix the dents after the collector then reweld the 2 sections back, a little filing, sanding, and header paint.........would look a hundred times better

my 2 cents

Thanks all, great tips so far. Keep it coming!

Our of curiosity, would it be worthwhile to just not weld the silencer back on, keep it at the length Wolf designed it to be?
I'm aware it would be louder, but it'd also be deeper (it's the pitch, not the volume that bothers me). I can fashion a small, hidden baffle to go inside and hush it up a bit.
I'd also have to make up some kind of support bracket for it: the current one is what holds the muffler can on.

Thoughts?