My repair didn’t last very long, and I wasn’t too surprised when Victoria called Friday to inform me the muffler had come loose again.
So Saturday, I had Glinda’s right rear back up on a jackstand and the wheel off giving me access to the misbehaving exhaust joint. To finally do the job right, I removed both the muffler and exhaust pipe from the car. Since my exuberant clamping had deformed the muffler’s inlet pipe, I needed to use tin snips to open it up. I made four slices along the pipes axis and peeled back the segments. That allowed me to slide the exhaust pipe end completely into the muffler’s inlet. The exhaust pipe went back on the car and muffler was installed with plenty of engagement before the clamp was put in place and the nuts torqued down. Next the wires went back just in case. Finally, I started up the engine to listen for leaks. While the joints I’d just re-made were quiet, the welded joint where the pipe from the right-side exhaust manifold met the exhaust pipe had cracked. It was too late in the day to get out the welder.
Yesterday afternoon, I was luck in that the wind was rather light. So, after the wire-brush attachment on my grinder exposed lots of bare metal, I was able to lay down enough metal with my MIG welder to seal up the crack. This should keep Glinda’s exhaust in running order for quite a while now.
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