exhaust tips loose - can't get them tight.

[mcjweller]

Hi all,

Cannot seem to get my exhaust tips secured. New Dansk stock muffler, and new-ish tips off of the engine that came with the car, want to reuse them.

I have them inserted to the right depth, have the steel "donut" on and the conical washer and the two clamp halves. Clamps and donut are on correctly and clamping/sealing against the muffler flange.

I can tighten the clamp bolts until they strip, the tips will still spin with a little effort, and I can pull them out by hand. What am I missing? Should I be drilling and inserting a set screw in each of them?

[Glenn]

Mismatch of aftermarket parts.

Get some muffler cement or high temp silicone. Apply some on the end and see if that takes up the gap.

_________________
Glenn
74 Beetle Specs | 74 Beetle Restoration | 2180cc Engine
"You may not get what you pay for, but you always pay for what you get"

Member #1009

#BlueSquare

עַם יִשְׂרָאֵל חַי

[vamram]

What I do to resolve this is open the ends of the clamps slightly by jamming the length of a 3/8" socket extension bar. This allows the 2 halves of the clamp to easily wrap the edge of the muffler pea shooter port and really bite down on and grab and hold the pea shooter when I tighten the 10mm clamp nuts and bolts. Have yet to lose a pea shooter doing this or have to drill a screw through it or use exhaust cement.
_________________
"Men are qualified for civil liberty in exact proportion to their disposition
to put moral chains upon their own appetites. -Edmund Burke

'74 Super 9/16 - present, in refurb process.
'73 Super - 6/18 - Present - Daily Driver!
'75 Super Le Grande...we hardly knew ye. Sold 2025 for peanuts.
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Save the Supers!!

[mcjweller]

Thanks! Good insights.

I'm actually wondering if the problem isn't the clamps themselves. That is to say, cheap aftermarket (vs OE). Theses ones are really thin around the "arch"...not much material there to clamp down on the donut/flange/conical washer.

I'll scrounge around the parts bin and see if I find better clamps and try that first. Nice to know though that it does happen from time to time, and I haven't just missed something...

[mcjweller]

So, checked out the clamps i have around, none are really any better than what I have on it now. I bought some exhaust putty as suggested (believe it or not the permatex product shown is not available in local stores here in Canukistan), so I bought an equivalent. Put it all back together, marginally better but I could still wiggle and twist them around at full torque. So, I put a couple of tack welds on the conical washer and the tips. That way, as long as the clamps are on, they can't just fall or blow out. And its easy to separate them again in the future.

Longer term I think I'll see if I can get a muffler shop to expand the ends of the tips a little...

[vamram]

Trust me, do what I suggested. Use a ratchet extension squeezed thru the ends of the 2!halves of each muffler clamp to widen them. This WORKS. No need to pay to have the tip ends flared. Then they probably won't fit in the muffler.
_________________
"Men are qualified for civil liberty in exact proportion to their disposition
to put moral chains upon their own appetites. -Edmund Burke

'74 Super 9/16 - present, in refurb process.
'73 Super - 6/18 - Present - Daily Driver!
'75 Super Le Grande...we hardly knew ye. Sold 2025 for peanuts.
Click to view image
Save the Supers!!

[mcjweller]

vamram - I may be misunderstanding what you're suggesting. I have no doubt that it worked for you, I'm just not sure that's my problem.

The issue on this end doesn't seem to be that the clamps aren't wide enough, if anything they are probably too wide. As a compression fitting, I would expect those clamps to squeeze that metal donut (compress it width wise as you tighten down) which is what makes its ID contract and OD expand as it gets "flatter", making the seal.

In my case, it seems like this is exactly what's not happening as much as it needs to. Or, the tips are just undersized enough that you just can't get enough compression to grip well.

I could be totally wrong and misunderstanding your suggestion...

[vamram]

Maybe a picture will better explain what I'm trying to describe. Here's one of the tailpipes clamp on my '74 1303. You can see that the ends of each half clamp are flared out. That allows me to fully tighten it and hold the tailpipe in place. No more lost tailpipes or having to drill a hole and screw them into the muffler. These tailpipes do have a hole for a screw because that's how I used to keep them from falling out until I figured this out.

Also, the clamps are not the same front to back. The edge for the muffler side is a wider opening than the edge that should grab the tailpipe. Makes sense....?

Perhaps your clamps are a different size...?
_________________
"Men are qualified for civil liberty in exact proportion to their disposition
to put moral chains upon their own appetites. -Edmund Burke

'74 Super 9/16 - present, in refurb process.
'73 Super - 6/18 - Present - Daily Driver!
'75 Super Le Grande...we hardly knew ye. Sold 2025 for peanuts.
Click to view image
Save the Supers!!

[mcjweller]

Thanks for that, a pic does help

I went and took another look. My clamps are already flared out like yours, spreading mine further won't help.

I did NOT realize that they are not the same back to front! Although as it turns out, I had them on the right way anyway.

I pulled out some of the old clamps and noticed some subtle differences. Just for fun, I put them on as-is and guess what, they snugged themselves down and the exhaust tips are solid in there. The subtle difference I found was in the shape of the arched section on both sides...they have more "meat" around the top/bottom of the clamp than the new ones.

so, they are ugly and crusty but they work, so I'll run them for now and maybe see if I can find some higher quality ones later on. Thanks for the tips, had you not mentioned sizing differences I would never have looked further.

[vamram]

How long can we go on about tailpipe clamps...?

Last thing I'll mention, is I've recently taken to buying "higher quality" ones, if there's such a thing. But I think even for this simple parts there are quality differences in the aftermarket supply.

https://www2.cip1.com/c31-298-051-111/
_________________
"Men are qualified for civil liberty in exact proportion to their disposition
to put moral chains upon their own appetites. -Edmund Burke

'74 Super 9/16 - present, in refurb process.
'73 Super - 6/18 - Present - Daily Driver!
'75 Super Le Grande...we hardly knew ye. Sold 2025 for peanuts.
Click to view image
Save the Supers!!