Exhaust/oil pan

1998 metro 1.0. A couple of months ago I noticed an oil leak. Turned out that the cat converter was hitting the oil pan and wore a hole through the pan. I trimmed the corner off the converter and welded the hole. A few weeks later the exhaust pipe was rubbing against the pan and wore a new hole. I finally made a bracket to hold the exhaust pipe over. This worked fine until the bolt on the transmission case where I had mounted the bracket came loose and I again have a hole. I have not been able to find any reason why the exhaust started hitting after 60M miles. Everything looks OK but the pipe is too close to the pan. What am I missing?

its possible someone hit something with the exhaust and bent the pipe. another cause could be rear (firewall one) motor mount wearing out allowing the motor to tip and rub on the pipe

I think that the motor mount is the problem. I had looked at it before but not close enough apparently. Now when I look at the rear mount the rubber doughnut has about 1/4" clearance at the top. That would mean that the engine is probably about 1/4" too low. The front mounts do not have any gap so I am relatively sure that is the problem. Thank you. Sometimes it is just too easy to miss the obvious.

Haha, what a strange thing to have happen. I second the motor mount.

-MechanicMatt

Well I just removed the rear motor mount and it was OK so I put it back in. So I am back to square one. All other motor mount look good. If the exhaust pipe got bent it did so without even putting a dent in it or scratching it. I am leaving town for the next 2-3 weeks so I have something to ponder while I am gone. Thanks. If anyone else has another idea I am open to suggestions.

You may have the wrong exhaust manifold on the car. All 96 and later models are designed to have a warm-up cat which drops down further than a non-catalytic manifold, and if you have the latter installed it would hold the pipe closer to the engine.

-MechanicMatt

WOW!! now this is strange. In my car, the exhaust pipe is placed so I can freely remove the oil pan, once it's unbolted and I don't have to drop the exhaust pipe. There's a good possibility that the exhaust system was replaced by a custom exhaust shop and they bent the pipe so it's too tight (close) in the area. The cat is typically a little further back than what you described, according to what I've seen in my car.