peterd51
happy to be here!
- Messages
- 1,593
Hi,
the wife (Bobbie) and I have a week off work, nothing special planned other than maybe find a different car for her.
Yesterday morning was warm and sunny so she was up at 8.30am and outside poking a hoe at the front garden for the first time this year. I took her a cuppa about 9.00-ish and we got chatting to our neighbor.
He asked about welding the exhaust on his sons Seat, 02 reg, apparently he'd been quoted a silly price for a new one...'more than the car was worth'.
So I said no problem, I was available all week. As it turned out the lad was off-work yesterday so he was at our house before 10.00am.
The exhaust had sheared off at the front pipe where it joins the middle pipe, easy fix 'on the car'...but it'd also gone at the main silencer where the pipe goes into the front plate. This looked at easy fix with a new plate across to the thick outer flange but it'd need the box off as the rear axel was in the way.
I reckoned on a couple of hours, Bobbie said OK so I got stuck in. The front break was a piece of cake, cleaned it all up with the flap-disk, propped the pipe up on the trolley-jack and it was done in five minutes.
Getting the back-box off was a bugger of a job as the pipe goes over the axel and the position of the rear mounting rubbers meant it all had to slide forwards.
So I decded to unbolt the front connection that I'd just welded and sheared off both of the rusty studs. Not really a problem as I had easy access to drill 8mm holes and then I could use bolts on the re-build.
Still it was a bit of a tussle to get the back-box off and it took two of us pulling and twisting. It was easy to see where the pipe should attach judging by the jagged edge, lining up the peaks and troughs. Cleaned it all up with the flap disk then found that I'd removed said peaks and troughs so not so easy now to get the pipe in the right position!
Tacked it on, tried it on the car, took it off, broke the tacks, tried again, and again, it finally looked OK, so I welded it all up. The front of the box was surprisingly stong and I decided it didn't need any plating.
Came to refit it and what a hassle...it looks like the back-box is designed to 'screw' on over the rear axel and it'll only go if you get it exactly right...like a 'chinese puzzle'. Lots of twisting, pulling, pushing and swearing later, it dropped into place.
Connected up, pushed it into the rubbers, just the holes to drill in the front flange. I took off the remaining stud with a cutting disk, punched the centres and drilled a 4mm hole in each. Upped it to 6.5mm then tried every 8mm & 9mm drill that I had but nothing would cut through.
I finally found one cheap and nasty drill set off a car boot that did the job. I have no idea what hapened here but it took ages to get the holes drilled out to 8mm.
So I finally got the exhaust back on and it sounded a lot less 'sporty' than when it arrived! But it'd taken three hours and my knees where starting to hurt.
Then this morning my shoulders and wrists where also hurting. I must be getting too old for this sort of thing!
It felt good at the time though!
Regards
Peter
the wife (Bobbie) and I have a week off work, nothing special planned other than maybe find a different car for her.
Yesterday morning was warm and sunny so she was up at 8.30am and outside poking a hoe at the front garden for the first time this year. I took her a cuppa about 9.00-ish and we got chatting to our neighbor.
He asked about welding the exhaust on his sons Seat, 02 reg, apparently he'd been quoted a silly price for a new one...'more than the car was worth'.
So I said no problem, I was available all week. As it turned out the lad was off-work yesterday so he was at our house before 10.00am.
The exhaust had sheared off at the front pipe where it joins the middle pipe, easy fix 'on the car'...but it'd also gone at the main silencer where the pipe goes into the front plate. This looked at easy fix with a new plate across to the thick outer flange but it'd need the box off as the rear axel was in the way.
I reckoned on a couple of hours, Bobbie said OK so I got stuck in. The front break was a piece of cake, cleaned it all up with the flap-disk, propped the pipe up on the trolley-jack and it was done in five minutes.
Getting the back-box off was a bugger of a job as the pipe goes over the axel and the position of the rear mounting rubbers meant it all had to slide forwards.
So I decded to unbolt the front connection that I'd just welded and sheared off both of the rusty studs. Not really a problem as I had easy access to drill 8mm holes and then I could use bolts on the re-build.
Still it was a bit of a tussle to get the back-box off and it took two of us pulling and twisting. It was easy to see where the pipe should attach judging by the jagged edge, lining up the peaks and troughs. Cleaned it all up with the flap disk then found that I'd removed said peaks and troughs so not so easy now to get the pipe in the right position!
Tacked it on, tried it on the car, took it off, broke the tacks, tried again, and again, it finally looked OK, so I welded it all up. The front of the box was surprisingly stong and I decided it didn't need any plating.
Came to refit it and what a hassle...it looks like the back-box is designed to 'screw' on over the rear axel and it'll only go if you get it exactly right...like a 'chinese puzzle'. Lots of twisting, pulling, pushing and swearing later, it dropped into place.
Connected up, pushed it into the rubbers, just the holes to drill in the front flange. I took off the remaining stud with a cutting disk, punched the centres and drilled a 4mm hole in each. Upped it to 6.5mm then tried every 8mm & 9mm drill that I had but nothing would cut through.
I finally found one cheap and nasty drill set off a car boot that did the job. I have no idea what hapened here but it took ages to get the holes drilled out to 8mm.
So I finally got the exhaust back on and it sounded a lot less 'sporty' than when it arrived! But it'd taken three hours and my knees where starting to hurt.
Then this morning my shoulders and wrists where also hurting. I must be getting too old for this sort of thing!
It felt good at the time though!
Regards
Peter
, if the exhaust was that bad to try and get back in then i would have cut it at an easy access spot and then weld it back up when it was on the car again 
but then again the last exhaust i worked on was a van and had to adapt a washing pole into an exhaust pipe 
