Neil, When I peeked under your van at Catherine Creek, I saw the potential for exactly what you're experiencing. The problem is the engine vibration. The solution is rubber vibration isolators. You need to develop a support system that has a bit of 'give' in it. You could do what you've done in 1" plate and all you'll have done is lengthened the time until it fails. Find someone local with a stock diesel vanagon. (Shawn Wright or Tobin Copley come to mind.)Take a look at the muffler mounting. You'll note that VW did mount the muffler to the motor (actually to the motor mounting system) and used elastomeric mounts. One on the right and two perpendicular to each other on the left. You'll need to come up with a similar system. I'll send you jpg of the relevant ETKA page p-mail. You might also chase down Bjorn Ratjen. He has a TDI mounted at 15 degrees and IIRC lives in Vancouver. Jim On Sep 23, 2008, at 5:29 PM, neil N wrote: > Hi all. > > After repairing my exhaust: > > http://tubaneil.googlepages.com/JustForLaffs.jpg/JustForLaffs- > full;init:.jpg > > (yes you can laugh now) > > I found yet more nagging details. Like broken exhaust brackets: > > http://tubaneil.googlepages.com/brokenexhaustbrackets > > I *think* the passenger side breaks are due to me bumping into a hill > side whilst escaping from a logging road on my last trip. The driver > side likely started to fail due to the increased motion. Plus upon > disassembly, I realized I had mistakenly built a little tension into > the design. i.e. inlet of cat needs to be pushed a little to line up > with the flange on primaries. > > So I'm hoping engine vibrations aren't the culprit. > > But if they are ...... > > Does anyone have some pointers on a better design for these parts? > > I like where they're mounted, and the material should be suitable > (1/8" mild steel) but the design may be the fault here. > > FWIW, the welds held up fine. There is an flex bellows in the > exhaust system. > > TIA for any pointers or pics of successful designs! > |
Please note - During the past 17 years of operation, several gigabytes of
Vanagon mail messages have been archived. Searching the entire collection
will take up to five minutes to complete. Please be patient!
Return to the archives @ gerry.vanagon.com
The vanagon mailing list archives are copyright (c) 1994-2011, and may not be reproduced without the express written permission of the list administrators. Posting messages to this mailing list grants a license to the mailing list administrators to reproduce the message in a compilation, either printed or electronic. All compilations will be not-for-profit, with any excess proceeds going to the Vanagon mailing list.
Any profits from list compilations go exclusively towards the management and operation of the Vanagon mailing list and vanagon mailing list web site.