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Old 04-24-2005, 05:50 AM   #1
Bas Carwash
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Lightbulb HOW TO: Build a detailed alluminium Tuner muffler

Well guys, here we go. I’ve made a promise to do a how to on this a couple of months
back. Now it's finally here Enjoy

Here’s what I use:
5,6 and 7 mm aluminium rod with wand of 0,5 mm (available in every LHS)
Dremel with grinder
Xacto blade or knife
Superglue
Flat file
600 and 1200 grit sandpaper
Metal polisher
30 minutes (after making 5 of these you do it in about 15 )

First of, some research. Most of the tuner style exhaust have a tip of about 100 to
120 mm diameter. So I, as a technical en mathematical genius , am able to do
100 / 24 and 120 / 24. So the tip should be about 4 – 5 mm. As we use 6 and 7 mm
aluminium rod we get a outside diameter of the muffler of about 170 mm in real life.
Pretty realistic isn’t it?

The pics below show the steps. I’m making a muffler with recess at the top and a
standard length for the tip. You can easlily change this if you prefer.

1. Take the Dremel with the grinder and take 25 mm of the 5 mm rod, 20 mm from the
6 mm rod and 22 from the 7 mm rod.

2. The small tubes look terrible after dremel using and I usually got some angled ends.
Use the file and Xactoblade to restore that. Don’t worry about cutting to much,
won’t be a problem.



3. Take the 5 mm tube. As we want the tip to be very thin we start using the file in a
small angle and make the outside diameter of the tip smaller. I do this over a length of 4 – 5 mm.



4. The outside tube (7 mm) will give us a little bit of recess. It looks great and is easy
to create. Just take your blade and cut away the inside diameter in an angle making at
least 180 degrees rotations with every cut. The 180 degrees rotation is for a smooth result.
Make sure the length you cut away this way is the same as you want your recess to be.

5. Polishing!!! Yeah!!! Use the 600 grit sandpaper to smoothen the parts where you used
your blade and file on. Sand the first 5mm of the inside tube, the top of the middle tube
and the inner of the outside tube. Make sure it becomes extremely flat.
Tip!!! Wrap the sandpaper around the tube, easy sanding and only scratches along
outside of the tube which will give you a very shiny finish in the end. (See pic to
understand what I mean.)



6. Make the sanded areas smoother using the 1200 grit sandpaper. Making the
same moves as in step 5.

7. Use the Metal polisher to make the aluminium shine like a mirror! For the 7 mm
tube: just polish the sanded part. We’ll do the outside later.



8. Put the small tube in the middle tube using superglue to make it stuck. Make
sure your tip length is okay. It doesn’t matter if there is a little bit of recess on the
other end. You can fix that later.

9. Put the large tube around the two others using your superglue again and make
sure the recess look the way you like it.

10. Almost done now. The back of the muffler isn’t looking quiet nice yet, so
use your blade and file to make it look better.




11. Here we go, 15 minutes nearer to the end of the day and a beautifull
1 on 24 aluminium tuner muffler richer. Life is great

Enjoy guys, cheers.
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