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Exhaust pipe repair kit ?

The exhaust on my Xantia has just failed - the bottom pipe has completely parted company from the rear silencer box.

Having examined it, I can see that the pipe failed right at the end, where it's flared to fit onto the front end of the silencer. Releasing the clamp revealed a neat circular section of flare about a quarter of an inch deep which had broken off the pipe.

It seems crazy to replace the whole pipe, which also contains the front silencer and cat converter, for the sake of such a small break.

It occurred to me that putting a short length of slightly larger bore pipe, suitably flared, over the end of the existing pipe, secured with a U-bolt clamp, and then attached in the normal way to the silencer, ought to be a much more cost-effective repair.

Has anyone tried a similar repair? Where would be a good place to go to have a repair piece like this made up? (I'm assuming that my local exhaust centre would much rather sell me a complete new system).

MTIA Dave

Reply to
Dave
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Google for "Metal Supermarkets", branches all over the country and they sell you as small a piece of metal as you need, they don't overcharge either. If they haven't any in stock they'll get it for you, very handy for small amounts of steel etc. like you're after.

HTH

Reply to
Tony Bond

or you could try your local friendy exhaust centre - ask if you can have a look in their skip foor a short piece that will fit in or over your own pipe and even get it welded up cheaply somewhere

Reply to
Tony Morland

sell you as small a piece of metal as you need, they don't overcharge either.

If it's a petrol engine the rear box is probably shot. If diesel it's worth a try. DaveK.

Reply to
DaveK

I must admit I hadn't thought of putting the extension piece inside the old one, though that might make it easier to locate a suitable pipe (the existing pipe is fairly hefty at 54mm O/D). I suppose I'd been tending to think that I'd get a better seal if the extension fitted outside the original, and I'd guess that a smaller diameter pipe might be difficult to flare enough to fit the existing sliencer joint.

I suppose the ideal would be to get hold of a serviceable section from a same-sized pipe and just weld the two together.

Having said that, I'm not so sure how "friendly" the exhaust centre would be once they realise they're not going to get a sale. Mind you, they owe me one - they put a new rear box on my wife's Punto which must have weighed in at double that of the original; it subsequently fell off - twice - before they twigged that they needed stronger rubber hangers.

That could well be worth a try, although it seems that my nearest branch is about an hour away.

Would they be able to put a suitable sized flare on the end of a section of pipe? (Their website does say "When you need notching, punching, shearing or bending, you can feel confident that we will meet and exceed your requirements at Metal Supermarkets", so that suggests that they would)

Many thanks Dave

Reply to
Dave

Cash is a wonderfull lubricant :-)

Reply to
Duncan Wood

My Xantia pipe failed in the same place. I needed the car so I bought and fitted a new pipe (fitted the same day).

Anyway, the new pipe was made of several pieces of steel welded where as the original was a one piece pipe. The flared end was a separate piece of pipe (with a flare) welded onto the end of the pipe.

In short what you are suggesting is very practical but you are probably going to find it difficult to find the right piece of pipe with the correct flare on the end of it, but good luck anyway.

-- James

Reply to
James

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