doing mufflers myself: from wrecker

[sad-lumina-owner]

3 years ago I paid local muffler shop to replace both rear mufflers.

Now (surprise) one completely rotted off, and the other is peeling, cracking, rusting. Temporary patchup with heat-cement is holding the better of the two together.

At the wrecker, the guy gave me two mufflers (stainless steel dual outlet) for $100. That beat the cheapest price for a stock replacement (about $85 plus install & tax).

(Actually, one muff cost about $110 installed, and the other more like $160, since it had a longer piece of custom pipe attached.)

Something else disturbing about the old mufflers: One has a heatshield installed overheat (partly rusted away, and so I fixed it with an added piece of galvanized stovepiping sheetmetal), whereas the other one with the extra pipe has no heatshield above (was it removed?) but has extra ribs welded onto it (I think to act as a built-in heat shield). This can't be the way it was originally from the factory.

I should be able to use the (nearly new) pipe from the one muffler and not have to replace it along with another muffler. And I should be able to make my own heat-shield and install that too.

I had a hard time getting the the remaining intake pipe that broke off one muffler, so I temporarily drilled, screwed, and clamped the old muffler back on, using an 'L' bracket (for shelves) and a 'c' clamp ($3), then cemented the crack. The cement held about one day, after vibrations, but the muffler was no longer in danger of falling off.

I had stuffed the muffler with stainless steel scrub pads (3 for $2 at Wallmart) to replace the rotted out chambers. But I stuffed it too much, and I think it choked out the engine a little, forcing more exhaust out the other muffler.

A guy at the wrecker explained that you can bash the pipe with a hammer to free up clamped joints (I had to do this to remove some extra pipe). His instructions were to bash the clamped area till the ridges made by the clamp were flattened. This advice actually worked, cleaning up the muffler (it was not rusted, being stainless steel).

But the rustier piece from the old muffler on the car was not so easy. I had to saw through it with a hacksaw at several points, and peel it off the inner pipe using vise-grips and needle-nose pliers, and also a flathead screwdriver and a hammer.

However, although the pipe diameters 'matched' (both 2 1/4, I think, measured by the clamps), the old 'stock' pipe was thinner than the pipe that came out of the stainless steel muffler. Close inspection revealed that the other pipe was much thicker and stronger than the pipe on my shitbox.

So when I installed the muffler (and sorted out a new hanger scheme using some bracket metal and an extra clamp on the exhaust tips), it was not tight on the connecting pipe, which supports the end of the muffler closest to the engine.

Even tightening up a new clamp did not remove the play from the connection. I thought I might make up a 'joiner' pipe, but there is no real room. The pipe bends quickly to meet the pipe from the other (driver's) side.

I don't think the new muffler is in danger of falling off, but it is loose, and droops (twists, since the clamp at the end is on one side/outlet).

Both of the 'new' mufflers look approximately like this:




The holding clamp at end goes on one pipe tip (closest to bottom for passenger side).

I am loathe to get the other end connecting to the pipes welded, since I will probably have to replace the pipe and catalytic converter soon anyway.

Is there another way to make the connection more solid and stable?

Also, although both mufflers look about the same, one is about 3x as heavy as the other, and has slightly different exhaust tips:

The lighter muffler has something like this: Exaggeratedly large, angled tips:



Whereas the heavier one has more like the following:



(only separate pipes into the muffler, not a 'y' join).


What brand could these mufflers be?

[DnaProRacing]

pep-boys carries those. dont remember who makes them but i do recall magnaflow making tips that look like that too. oh, I got my flowmasters put on for $180. pretty solid job too. love the sound and they had it done within 20 minutes. dropped the car off, walked across the street to have lunch, came back to pick it up, done, badda bing...

[sad-lumina-owner]

Originally Posted by DnaProRacing

pep-boys carries those. dont remember who makes them but i do recall magnaflow making tips that look like that too. oh, I got my flowmasters put on for $180. pretty solid job too. love the sound and they had it done within 20 minutes. dropped the car off, walked across the street to have lunch, came back to pick it up, done, badda bing...

...so including lunch it was about $200?

Well, thats about twice my budget, having already bought the mufflers for $100, I'm hoping to save the other hundred by applying some elbow grease and a bit of engenuity...

The replacing of the second muffler is going to wait for a bit, which reminds me of this great/awful joke:

This guy goes to the doctor, and the doctor says,

"I'm sorry, we are going to have to amputate it."

The guy says, "NO! OhMyGod. I'm going to get another opinion."

After a few more doctors, one doctor reassures him:

"Hell no! We don't have to cut it off. The other doctor doesn't know what he's talking about!"

"Whew!" The guy says.

The doctor goes on to explain:

"Heck, in two weeks it'll fall off."

[sad-lumina-owner]

Originally Posted by DnaProRacing

pep-boys carries those. dont remember who makes them but i do recall magnaflow making tips that look like that too. oh, I got my flowmasters put on for $180. pretty solid job too. love the sound and they had it done within 20 minutes. dropped the car off, walked across the street to have lunch, came back to pick it up, done, badda bing...

...so including lunch it was about $200?

Well, thats about twice my budget, having already bought the mufflers for $100, I'm hoping to save the other hundred by applying some elbow grease and a bit of engenuity...

The replacing of the second muffler is going to wait for a bit, which reminds me of this great/awful joke:

This guy goes to the doctor, and the doctor says,

"I'm sorry, we are going to have to amputate it."

The guy says, "NO! OhMyGod. I'm going to get another opinion."

After a few more doctors, one doctor reassures him:

"Hell no! We don't have to cut it off. The other doctor doesn't know what he's talking about!"

"Whew!" The guy says.


The doctor goes on to explain:

"Heck, in two weeks it'll fall off."

[sad-lumina-owner]

Quick Update:

Silly me!

All I think I have to do is cut horizontal slits in the outer pipe coming off the muffler.

Then the clamps will be able to squash it down and make a good mechanical connection between muffler and exhaust system.

This should make the muffler solid without welding, and it means I'll be able to easily remove it later when I want to replace the older pipe and Catalytic Converter.

I hope this helps others with similar dilemmas due to inexperience.

[Forscythe87]

Originally Posted by sad-lumina-owner

Quick Update:

Silly me!

All I think I have to do is cut horizontal slits in the outer pipe coming off the muffler.

Then the clamps will be able to squash it down and make a good mechanical connection between muffler and exhaust system.

This should make the muffler solid without welding, and it means I'll be able to easily remove it later when I want to replace the older pipe and Catalytic Converter.

I hope this helps others with similar dilemmas due to inexperience.

From my limited experience the outlined way is the best way. Why you running away from welding? Rent a welder (right one) at home depot and practice welds on scrap metal.

Sounds like you will be throwing money away your way.

[sad-lumina-owner]

Originally Posted by Forscythe87

From my limited experience the outlined way is the best way. Why you running away from welding? Rent a welder (right one) at home depot and practice welds on scrap metal.

Sounds like you will be throwing money away your way.

Sorry, Im confused: Whats the "outlined way", welding it?

"Rent a welder" - hmmm how much do you think that will cost? And anyway since I don't have money, a credit card or a credit rating, I doubt that will be happening.

I hope to find a welding unit in the garbage soon.

Meanwhile, what is wrong with cutting a couple of slits in the end of the pipe? How is THAT throwing my money away? They used to have such slits automatically cut in many exhaust pipes and mufflers, among the many other pipe systems in the world.

Are you worried about exhaust leakage, or noise? Remember these are Stainless steel musclecar mufflers I got cheap from the wrecker. The exhaust system leaks now. I'm not likely to degrade it cutting two small slits.

Suppose later I keep the mufflers, and want to weld them onto a new pipe system. Is there a problem? I can just as easily weld up the slits too, when the time comes, and when I have welding equipment.

Not sure how spending more money saves me money, or how not spending it costs me money here. Can you explain?

[sad-lumina-owner]

Update:

We ended up doing it your way after all.

buddy came over with a MIG welder. We took off the muffler, and I had a go at sawing the slots in it, but with a hacksaw it was going to take quite a while.

Pal shored up rusting support hangers with extra welding, while I gave up on sawing the slots. He suggested (as you did) to just weld it.

With the back wheel off there was plenty of room to weld all the way round (a concern of his).

We tried to remove the 2nd (old, std) muffler on the driver's side. That muffler has an extra 3 ft piece of pipe attached, and also a kind of built in heat guard (I think its the $160 muffler, the other one was $105 last time).

Anyway we got the U-clamp off, but couldn't go any further with it. We're starting again tomorrow.

On the other hand, now I have two working mufflers: the old (still working sort of) muffler on drivers side, and the new "Flowmaster"-style Stainless steel musclecar muffler on the passenger side.

The car now has a deep but smooth rumble sound with normal driving and gets a bit louder (something like a noisey muffler) when accelerating. It aint too bad.

I am wondering what the car might sound like if we get the other (virtual cherrybomb/flowmaster) muffler on tomorrow.

Having a friend with a welder and some time really makes a difference in getting a job going.

He said to cut slots I should use a 'sawsall'. Of course the most advanced tool I have is a crappy jigsaw.

[jeffcoslacker]

That's when a compressor comes in handy. With a cutoff tool, you just make two slits in the rusted inlet at 180 degrees apart, and knock the muffler right off...

Because otherwise dealing with the crimp from the exhaust clamp is nearly hopeless...sometimes heating the outside pipe and twisting the muffler back and forth on the pipe will expand it enough to pull free...

sometimes if you have areal sharp ckisel, you can cut a slot in the inlet far enough to get the chisel under the pipe and start peeling it back...once you get past the clamp crimp, it'll pull free...

[jeffcoslacker]

Man I can't type worth a damn lately...

[sad-lumina-owner]

Here's an update with pics to give people a feel for this job, and how easy it can be:

Here is the welding job to attach the new (used) muffler. The young lad who did the weld said it was easy. He was surprised at how much room he had and was able to go all the way around with the rear passenger wheel off and the car on jacks.




Here is the new hanger arrangement at the back of the muffler. We just used the original hanger, and I added a bracket (a piece of metal I found), a strap (and U-clamp) and two nuts&bolts:

Notice the piece of galvanized stove-pipe I used to replace the rusted heat shield in the background..

[sad-lumina-owner]

Well, its time for an update:

the driver's side muffler finally went a few days ago, an inconvenient time since I was out of town on a jobsite and wife has few mechanical skills.

The back plate of the muffler rusted through and the bracket came off, so the muffler was dangling dangerously low, and looked like it might come loose. So I first wired it up again with cheap stove/hanger wire.

Problem was, the noise. The cab was incredibly loud, like riding in a deisel truck, you could hardly hear your country music over the throbbing engine roar.

The biggest problem was money. I still had the other "FloMaster" style stainless steel muffler, but obviously this car was too loud, even with a busted regular muffler and one musclecar muffler.

So I knew I had to find an ordinary muffler for the second muffler. TWO cherry bombs would be one too many for shopping at the grocery store.

I went to one metal recycler but no go. Nothing that was usable. I even hung around the metal bin dumpsters a few times hoping someone would chuck out a muffler that fell off, but nothing.

So I returned to the auto wrecker I bought the two musclecar mufflers from. After all, I paid $50 each for these babies (probably overpaid, given a new muffler is about $90) and asked a favour, if I could trade the one back for a normal muffler.

No problem. I think either he felt guilty about the price I paid for the first two mufflers, or else he just wanted goodwill and return business. He had a truckload of good used mufflers cannibalized off wrecks, and I found a suitable (slightly oversize) substitute.

I returned the second FloMaster with a tear in my eye, and headed home.

This time I was armed with a SawsAll and a FluxCore wire welder.

I cut off the hanger-wire and sawed off the muffler close to the stem at the join where it meets the pipe that turns and connects to the main exhaust.

Normally they charge an extra $50 for a muffler with this stupid bit of pipe pre-welded on so that you can connect it to the exhaust somewhere in the middle. Screw that.

I kept the pipe I previously paid for on the last (crappy) muffler that only lasted 2 years. It still looks brand new (this is how I know the muffler was crap).

All I had to do was make a new bracket to accomodate a connection to the back of the muffler at the tailpipe, and fit the other end of the muffler to the remaining pipe.

The worst part of the job was removing the bit of pipe already stuck in the 'new' muffler from where it was joined to some other car. This 3 inch piece of pipe was a real pain in the ass, and took me an hour or more of banging and finally hacking into it with the SawsAll, and prying it out with a large flathead screwdriver and hammer. (another screwdriver destroyed: cost of doing business).

Now the pipe was flared (but so what), and it fit fairly easily onto the exhaust pipe.

By the way, I had to put the muffler on BACKWARDS, to line up the holes (one end to the side, the other end in the middle): I hope this doesn't affect the performance too much, or wear.

I also scoured the rust off the muffler and spraypainted it with "Rust Converter" (see my bodywork threads) and high temperature black paint overtop. (I'm happy to report this stuff works great on exhaust systems.)

I measured the new bracket I made from a piece of sheet steel wrong, and had to re-drill a mounting hole, but that wasn't much of a big deal.

Now came the welding. On this side, I am near the gas tank spout, and also the disk brakes (the rear wheel on drivers side had to be removed to access the back of the muffler for welding). I covered the brake rotor with a plastic bag (I should have used a canvass bag or tarp).





Well this was the second time in my life I have tried to weld something, and I burned a few holes (and refilled them). I have to admit this was the worst welding job I have ever seen. I gave it a pass eventually, and put everything back together.



The car now sounds much quieter, and still has a sinister, powerful roar from the FlowMaster style muffler on the passengers side....simply awesome.



The bit of pipe left from the exhaust of the previous car (remember this muffler was put in backwards) made a fine tailpipe when sawed off with the SawsAll.



The boss thought it looked like I jammed a crowbar up the back of the car. But the muffler with homemade bracket hardly looks worse than the other muffler on the passengers side.
I can saw off the excess bracket with the sawsall later.

And the whole project here only cost the gas to drive to the wreckers (trading in the other muffler), the welding wire, and a couple hours of my time.

The Lord was with me, thanks big guy, amen.