Date:         Sun, 22 Apr 2001 20:11:26 -0400
Reply-To:     Miguel Calvin <mcalvin@mac.com>
Sender:       Vanagon Mailing List <vanagon@gerry.vanagon.com>
From:         Miguel Calvin <mcalvin@mac.com>
Subject:      Muffler repairs
Content-type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII"

Listees,

This weekend I repaired the muffler on my 1.9l Westy.  "Repaired?" you say,
"how can this be done?"

I will tell you:

The road salt of two Canadian winters had completely destroyed the tailpipe
and the end plate of the muffler, leaving me with a very loud straight pipe
5" in diameter.  You see, that end of the muffler is right in the spray from
the right rear wheel...

The rest of the muffler was in pretty good shape and my bank account was
already empty, so I decided to repair it.

I bought a small sheet of 22ga. steel and cut two pieces to fit over the end
of the muffler like this:

   _       _
 /   \    |_ \
(   (      _) )
 \ _ /    |_ /

with the cutouts fitting around the outlet pipe and overlapping for
strength.

I removed all rust from the edges of the muffler body and the tailpipe
flange, tried to braze the plates on, and discovered that my "brazing torch"
is not really hot enough for brazing.

Thank goodness my neighbour is a Blacksmith, a Farrier, actually; he puts
shoes on horses.  He put his oxy-acetylene rig to work and voila: the
muffler is beautiful.  Well, quieter anyway.

Next we braze on a new tailpipe and close up some cracks in the headers,
then she will really purr again.

The total cost was about 10% of the cost of a new muffler and tailpipe from
busdepot, plus time and a favour owed.

Anyone else tried this?  Did it last?
--
Miguel