New exhaust/Trade-in question

Unfortunately, the exhaust pipe has rusted completely through. It needs to be welded at least as a start just to hold the ends together. I think I'm going to take the car to a shop to get the break welded, and then supplement the welding with JB Weld or tape if it becomes necessary. Thanks for the suggestion.

Ken

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Ken
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I had also asked the guy on the phone at the auto repair shop about stainless steel mufflers.He said about $100.00 per muffler.I have seen some people before use a coat hanger wire instead of a regular welding rod for welding a tail pipe.

A guy in New York punched some holes in an aluminum soda pop can and he cut out one end of the can and he filled the can with steel wool.Then he clamped the can on to the end of the tail pipe.When he finally took his car to a shop for a new muffler, the guy at the shop said his car engine was running so quiet he couldn't hear the engine running.Stainless steel/steel wool is available too.I have some I bought at a scrap iron yard about thirty five years ago. cuhulin

Reply to
cuhulin

if there's enough of a stub you could just cut it clean and clamp on a short piece of pipe - I'm assuming you don't have your own welder or you wouldn't be going back and forth about it :)

nate

Reply to
Nate Nagel

Right, no welding equipment. Years ago I took the welding class at the local continuing ed department, but never got around to actually purchasing any equipment, and now have lost the skills I learned. It's one of those things I wish I would have done years ago. My wife is of the mind that if I've gotten along all these years without needing to weld anything, why start now? I'm of the mind that if I have the equipment, I would certainly find uses for it. Guess who wins......

Ken

Reply to
Ken

With the temperature cycling, a lot of stainless steels that don't rust at room temperature suddenly start to rust. Also a lot of those steels don't do very well with the wide temperature cycling. You make a muffler out of 406 stainless... get it nice and hot and then splash water on it and it'll crack.

I think the stuff they used for exhaust systems is a ferritic stainless alloy of some kind.

They key to avoiding exhaust system rust is to drive long distances whenever possible. Boil all the water out of the system and it will last a good while.

--scott

Reply to
Scott Dorsey

An old ''Trick" to help keep down muffler and tailpipe rusting is to drill a hole in the engine exhaust manifold and tap/thread the hole for an Alemite/grease fitting.Every once in a while, use a grease gun and grease the Alemite.I read about that old ''Trick'' in a Popular Science or Popular Mechanics magazine back in the 1950s. I just Love those old ''Tricks''. cuhulin

Reply to
cuhulin

I don't think that would be a particularly good idea if you have a vehicle made since the early 70's and is equipped with a cat...

nate

Reply to
Nate Nagel

Hey, OP here. For those who may be interested, I wanted to follow up and tell what happened with my exhaust system.

I ended up going to a local repair shop, and they welded the broken sections of the exhaust back together for $80. At best, a temporary repair. There are still small leaks here and there, making the exhaust loud, so its still obvious that there is some problem. (But still WAY better than it was when it was completely detached.)

We settled on a new car to buy, and asked what we could get for a trade-in on this car. Answer was $700. Book value of a car without the need for any repairs was $1500, and replacement parts for the exhaust are >$1000, so I figured I ended up doing the right thing, economically speaking from my point of view.

P.S. The new car we are getting is a VW Golf TDI (TDI = Turbo diesel injected). Picking it up this afternoon. First time I've ever owned a diesel, we'll see how that goes!

Ken

Reply to
Ken

From all I've heard you should be happy with it. I thought briefly about buying one back in 2002, but made the mistake of test driving a GTI 1.8T instead :)

nate

Reply to
N8N

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