ARRRGGGHHHH!!!!! (muffler installation)

Been there, got the t-shirt.

I don't trust those clamps. Had one rotate on me on the road and was that ever a racket. These days I just clamp them enough to get down to the shop and weld it up.

I'm not sure you could pay me enough any more to do my own exhaust repairs. Too many knuckle hacks, burnt fingers, cut fingers, and parts that refuse to fit or remove without a BFH.

That is called 'galling' and there is an anti-sized made for stainless to prevent that from happening. Once the fastner is siezed, it is essientially welded together--not much will break it apart!

Tell me about it. Some idiot at Hamilton-Standard decided to use a big stainless flathead machine screw with a little tiny Allen recess to secure the P-3 afterbody. Didn't take long for the Navy to discover that they may as well have just welded the thing and been done with it. Ended up coating both the screw and the nut with Electrofilm, which sorta kinda worked until it wore off.

Galling is probably part of the problem, but that clamp was poorly designed from the git-go--didn't have a flat surface for the nut to ride on, instead it had a cutout that had the nut riding on the edges of the bent-up part, and the cutout wasn't properly positioned so the nut was riding crooked and I suspect that that was a significant contributing factor.

Anyway, once I got the bike charged back up, I went down to Advance Auto Parts (closest place that's open that late on a Sunday) and got a couple of 3 buck clamps and they went on just fine. The one on the front of the cat's not as tight as I'd like it to be but in the dark I couldn't tell if it was tightening or stretching and didn't want to press my luck. Anyway, it'll get me where I need to be tomorrow and I can pick up another clamp on the way home.

I have a board with some of my screw-ups, and disasters mounted. One is a 1/2" stainless bolt, twisted like a pretzel, broken (which is how I got it out). The nut sized on the bolt about 1/4" before it tightened, no warning, nothing. Once it galled and siezed, it was on so tight that I had to twist the bolt apart to get it out! I've been very careful with stainless ever since...

As to those steel clamps. I keep a can of 'high-temp' BBQ black spray on the shelf for exhaust systems. It seems to last, and doesn't burn off after the cat (I don't use it on or forward of the cat however). I spray all clamps and hangers, and usually the last few feet of the pipe (which seems to be the most likely to rot out.) Certainly nothing is 100% (since exhaust systems usually rot from the inside out on most vehicles) but IMHO it helps.