Correct muffler and tailpipe for my 1969 RHD 411

[lateral]

Hi guys

I have a 1969 411 (RHD) and the car has been fitted with an AP series Type 4 engine (1800).

The exhaust currently comes out of the right hand side instead of the left hand side "cutout".

This annoys me every time I look at the rear of the car!

I would really like to find the correct exhaust and have the tailpipe exit the left hand side of the rear.

Am I correct in that the correct muffler is part # 021251101E and the correct tailpipe/damper is part # 021251171P?

Also, will this exhaust fit the AP series engine and perhaps later model Type 4 engines such as a CJ series engine?

My car has all of the heater boxes in place as well.

Thanks for any help you can provide me.

Cheers
Greg

[raygreenwood]

[lateral]

As always, thanks Ray,

The car went originally to Papua New Guinea and then to Australia.

Australia apparently never officially received any 411.

I was told that VW sent out 6 test vehicles and that VW Australia decided not to import them.

Just so that I am clear, are you saying that the muffler (021 251 101E) is correct and that the damper (021 251 177C) is what I really need but that the Damper on the Samba (021 251 171 N) will also work?

I checked the parts book that I have and I think I have also located another damper (021 251 171) that suits up to engine number V0 049 186 (The original engine number for my car was V0 041 157) so I am assuming that this will work as well.

As the original engine in the car has been replaced with an AP series Type 4 engine, am I correct in assuming that the muffler/damper will fit?

Thanks again Ray.

Cheers
Greg

[raygreenwood]

So, if find a damper style, left exit muffler....yes...it will bolt right up to your exhaust system.

But, while the owner selling that tail pipe has done as much as he can to identify the part he has....I think a little more research needs to be done before we say that it WILL fit the muffler you buy....and ALSO meet up with the cut out in your rear valance.

See, he is using literature from the Leistritz catalog. Nothing wrong with that.....but the picture he has in his ad is showing two different sharp turn, small outlet damper tailpipes neither of which are using VW #s.

The vw parts book appears to show the shorter variety....not that parts book diagrams are particularly to scale. It appears to me that the tail pipe he has for sale is the longer variety shown in his Leistritz diagram on the right.

So while it's the correct "type" of tailpipe for the muffler "type" your car needs.....I just do not know if it's the exact right one.

Since you need to have both parts....I would acquire the main muffler first. Then you can hold it up close and measure which tailpipe you need and then search for that.

I will look and see if I still have/own the damper style, right hand exit muffler that I had. If so, I can at least measure it for you. The left and right hand are mirror images of each other. It should at least tell you which pipe length you need to meet up with your cut out.

Ray

[lateral]

Thanks Ray

Am I correct in assuming that these mufflers will fit all Type engines as the car currently has an AP series engine installed?

Cheers
Greg

[Pepperbilly]

That is an interesting cheese grater. I have never seen that before with the cut out.

Bill

[Pepperbilly]

[wonkipop]

i can shed some light on the muffler.
own a 914.
live in melbourne australia.

914s shared the earlier muffler with the central exit hot dog or damper muffler with the 411,

in 1973 the central exit design gave way to the single muffler with the short tailpipe out the left hand side. this muffler superseded the earlier mufflers as the replacement part for all 914 models. two tailpipes were offered to deal with the earlier model 914s that had the deep rear valence and the later 914s with the cut down valence panel.

the single piece muffler appeared to arrive with the 412.
the same muffler was also used for the buses with the type 4 engine.

the muffler exits left hand side on a 914 and right hand side on a bus.



but thats not the whole story.

25 years back i picked up a beautiful stainless steel bus (kombi) muffler to fit to my 914. it looked identical to the original factory 914 muffler. except the inlet flange plates on the muffler that mate with the heat exchangers/outlets were fabricated upside down on the 914 muffler when compared to the bus muffler.

went to fit muffler. same dilemma as you. annoying right hand side exit for tailpipe instead of left hand side. solution. we cut the flange plates off and rewelded them on upside down. discovering in the process that that was how a 914 muffler was manufactured back in 73/74. it was a bus muffler with the flange plates welded on the other way around. the 914 muffler is quite literally mounted upside down. all the deformations that fit around the lower fan casting etc and face up on a 412/bus muffler face down on a 914 (even the factory fitted mufflers were like this).

suspect that its the same for the 411.
you won't find one of those central outlet damper type mufflers anymore.
or if you do its going to be rare rare rare.

but the 914 muffler that dansk make for the 1.7 and 1.8 914s is the correct part for a 914. i recall looking into this a few years back and dansk also offer the 411/412 bus muffler. i assume this has the flange plates welded on upside down compared to the 914 and the deformations in the muffler face up. the trick is going to be can you reconfigure the whole thing with the deformations up for correct fitment in a 411 and still get the left hand side exit. i suspect the dansk mufflers now all result in right hand side exit.

i've got photos somewhere of all the details and how it mounts etc on a 914.

but it could be as simple as the removal of the flange plates and rewelding them on the other way around. the deformations in the muffler might be the stumbling block.


---------

@lateral

is there evidence your 411 was once a burgundy color.
is it a fastback?

i remember the 411 fastback appraisal car from the 80s when it was owned by a guy in melbourne. he had rescued it from papua new guinea. i think i have my memory reliable enough to recall it was burgundy.

the other ones i remember that were still around was a white 69 variant and a white 69 four door. the variant was in melbourne in the 80s and was down in condition even then. the 4 door lived in canberra and was immaculate and well cared for.

[Pepperbilly]

I know you are probably wanting to keep the car as original as possible. If you don’t care so much about that I would source a later style cheese grater. Might be the easier way to go. If you do that hang on to your original cheese grater.

Bill

[kgarchivinusa]

Hi Greg,

The First Modelyear came only with a „V“ Engine.

you need
Muffler 021 251 101 E
Tailpipe 021 251 171 C

_________________
1958 Ghia Coupe aerosilver/graywhite
1966 Ghia Coupe lotoswhite/black pigalle
1968 sunroof bug savannah beige
1968 VW 411 4-door royal red
1968 VW 411 L 4-door cobaltblue
1988 Porsche 924S Targa alpinweiss

(O = i = O) Karmann Ghia rassig und charmant [hot-blooded and charming] [O o\ i /o O]

[kgarchivinusa]

This is the complete Set of heater, muffler, pipe and Eberspacher pipe for the First year.

_________________
1958 Ghia Coupe aerosilver/graywhite
1966 Ghia Coupe lotoswhite/black pigalle
1968 sunroof bug savannah beige
1968 VW 411 4-door royal red
1968 VW 411 L 4-door cobaltblue
1988 Porsche 924S Targa alpinweiss

(O = i = O) Karmann Ghia rassig und charmant [hot-blooded and charming] [O o\ i /o O]

[wonkipop]

[wonkipop]

quick and dirty search of internet for south african 411/412 turned these up for sale in the UK in the past.

(south african market cars had the weird little circular reflectors which i remember from the cars in perth WA).

sure enough. left hand side exit mufflers.
might be a good place to search for one.
lots of 411s and 412s at one time in south africa.
i'd hazard a guess these might be single pot mufflers the superceded the earlier ones with the central exit hot dog tail pipe. but who knows. pretty obscure stuff when it comes to 411s/412s in australia. nevertheless at one time the biggest concentration of the cars was out west in WA due to many south africans bailing on africa back in the 80s. they moved in droves to WA.

by the looks of it they don't share the same tailpipe exit location as the early mufflers but i would hazard a guess that the early 914s and the 411s early on shared the same set up. the early 914s had a tailpipe exit in the rear apron that was well inboard compared to the later cars with the shorter apron. and these days they sell a tailpipe that works for the early cars with the superceding single pot muffler. if you can find the muffler from south africa you could try the 914 tailpipe from dansk for the early 914 or simply fabricate up a tail pipe yourself.

note how they have the cheese grater rear aprons and at least one if not both are 412s. hot climate thing. type 3s had the same cheese graters down in this part of the world.

[wonkipop]

images can do a good job explaining things when it comes to type 4 exhaust systems and VW parts bin funny business.

this is the original factory muffler.
came of my 914 1.8 25+ years ago.
those of you who know your type 4 mufflers (or even bus mufflers) will recognize it.
but look closely. the exhaust flanges are welded on in the inverse direction to type 4 and bus mufflers. but the exhaust flanges on the 914 heat exchangers are in the same orientation as a type 4.

and this is the set up i have had for 25+ years.
(given a fresh lick of paint 5 years ago when i recommissioned the car).
its a stainless steel bus muffler i picked up last century.
likely by an australian aftermarket manufacturer.
very high quality.
got a complete SS system on the car. heat exchangers through to muffler.
we chopped off the exhaust flanges and rewelded them on to the opposite orientation to achieve the left hand side exit that is stock on a 914.
it looks exactly as the factory did it.
in a 914 the type 4 deformed sections in the muffler face down not up.
does not matter in a 914. nothing but empty air back there.
not trying to fit up against the cooling fan casting.

i'm betting the south africans made a genuine version of this for their 412 as the last variation on the theme. except it would have been a genuine left hand exit version where the whole thing is designed to fit up under the type 4 engine.

but this is where VW germany had gotten to by 1974.
they were using the same muffler for the 412, the bus and the 914.
except the 914 had those flanges welded on in the other orientation.

however there must have been something else available in south africa for the 412s if they were exiting left. it could not have been the USA market muffler being deployed on 914s, 412s and buses?

reason i know all this is i went through hell 25 years ago trying to sort a new muffler for the 914. at first we thought, oh yeah its just a bus muffler.......but no.....when we went to fit it up - it was going to exit right hand side. did our heads in for a while until we twigged as to what VW was up to back in the 70s.

there were no dansk mufflers back then either to mail order in.
mind you this is much better and much higher quality than a dansk muffler.

but that is all dansk are currently doing. they are making a bus / 412 muffler alongside the 914 muffler and its the same basic stock. they weld on the exhaust flanges the other way around and sell the 914 muffler at double the price. cause.......its a porsche ----right?

[raygreenwood]

So, in the US....and this parts book copy is not complete because it only goes tHROUGH August of 1972 so it has some small amount of detail about 412...but not complete.....there were five variants of muffler available in the US.

1. The very early left hand exit version of the damper style muffler used only on early 411 (as far as I know because it was never even officially shipped to the US) noted by the skinny damper tailpipe on the parts diagram as part #4.

2. The left hand exit damper style (damper style means that the tailpipe exits from the center of the muffler)...upper picture

3. Right hand exit damper style....lower picture

4. The right hand end exit (not shown in this book)

5. The left hand end exit (not shown in this book)

Ray

[wonkipop]

ray greenwood.

if you could get hold of an updated 412 parts catalogue through to end of production in 74 i suspect it goes something like this.

this is the PET pages for the 914 (which is a VW parts catalogue).
its also dated after the 914 finishes production so it shows the rationalisation for the availability of spare parts and what becomes the later part that supercedes the earlier part and the applicability of which part to which year.

you can see that the type 4 engines transition to the single muffler without the damper tailpipe. this occurs during the 73 model year run. after that time that muffler is the replacement part for all 914s and you buy a different tailpipe that has a tighter curve out of the end of it for the earlier 914s. that tight curve may or may not equal the same dimensional spot in relation to the damper tailpipe on the early 411s. it sure looks like it could be.

in typical lazy VW fashion they never updated the parts drawings themselves.
so they don't draw in the later style single pot muffler without the damper tailpipe. instead they just list it. it took me a bit to get my head around it years ago.

i believe the 1.8 412s and perhaps even some of the 1.7 412s would have got this very similar muffler that went on the 914s in 73 and 74. for the most part the 412s would have had a right hand side exit due to orientation of heat exchanger exhaust flanges and the 914s retained a left hand side exit by 180 rotation of heat exchanger exhaust flanges on muffler itself also resulting in an upside down orientation of muffler body.

another place to look for these parts would be a bus parts book covering the 73 and 74 model years. i believe the later muffler and possible variations of it would be there maybe.

VW probably sold the earlier damper style exhausts at dealers as a spare part until stocks were used up and after that the single pot style muffler became the superceding replacement part.

and these days you seem to be down to dansk simply making a single VW part for the 411/412 and bus with the rhs exit and the same part assembled slightly differently in terms of exhaust flanges resulting in lhs exit for the 914.

i think south africa might be a good source as the 412s kept pn soldiering on there. dry climate. no rust. in the recent past VW enthusiasts in europe and UK were sourcing 411s and 412s from there in good condition. which tends to say there was probably a good parts supply for the cars which might mean there are still caches of parts there.

i'd speculate that by around 74 VW had rationalised the muffler down to a single pot design with around 3 variations.

one for a rhs exhaust exit. suits 411/412 with rhs exhaust and bus.
i believe all the buses had a rhs exhaust outlet with the type 4 engine.

one for a lhs exhausts. suits 411/412. as seen on later SA 412 variants at least. this would be a quasi - mirror version (internally) of the rhs type but it has a tailpipe that exits on extreme left and not inboard. but would adapt to early 411 with a shorter and tigher curve tailpipe piece.

one for the 914 configured upside down for a left hand side exhaust and using the first variant.

and what has fallen by the wayside with dansk is the second type for a 412/411 as this is a mirror version and it requires you to manufacture its internals slightly differently.

half a century down the track dansk have rationalised down to using a single muffler body that adapts to most 411/412s and all 914s as well as all buses.

the bit that varies to make them fit each car is the final short tailpipe out of the end of the single pot muffler and the orientation of the exhaust connection flange plates.

(note you get turned into an exhaust nerd in australia as neither 914s or 411/412s were ever sold here. just the type 4 buses. the parts stock here is for buses. the man in sydney with the early 411 has the same problem in a way that i have had).

worth noting. i believe i may have seen the sydney car many many years ago when i was young. around 6 very early 411s were brought into australia for assessment. nearly all of them survived into the 80s. three were in canberra that i knew about and three were in melbourne. there were two variants, two fastbacks and two 4 door sedans. all were twin carb manual gearbox cars.
VW australia determined the 411 would not succeed in the australian market against japanese imports. plans to market the cars were dropped and the 6 cars became orphans. back in the 80s the cars were generally in the hands of members of the VW club of australia.

the variant in melbourne was white. the 4 door was a light blue color and the fastback was a burgundy/purple color. they all had the magnesium case engines. be interesting to know if any of those original engines survived in the cars. the mag case engines were not as durable. probably all have later replacement case engines by now?

i came very close to buying the white variant second hand but someone gazoomped me before i could lay down a holding deposit to get the car.
it was a little run down but still in original condition. that would have been in about 1985 or so.

[wonkipop]

i had this in my 914 muffler files.
can't remember where i found this.
was years back.
helped me work out just what i could use to get to a 74 914 muffler out of a bus type 4 muffler. given there were bus mufflers in abundance in australia 20 years back.

for a while i ran the ss bus muffler i had without altering the heat exchanger flanges and i had it right hand side exiting. during recommission i put it all correct by altering the muffler so i got the lhs exit.

was how i could unpick the logic of just what was done with mufflers in 73/74 for the later years of the 412/914.

there must have been something going on with south african 412s for those to be fitted with lhs exit mufflers. either there was a late 412 single pot style muffler with a lhs exit or those late 412s were fitted with unrevised early 411 exhaust systems that were manufactured in south africa at VW factory or component supplier. .....and there may be NOS stocks still around in SA even now years down the track?

that single pot lhs exit muffler must have been unique to the 412. simply because 914s never had it. the lhs exit on the 914 has always been a right hand side exit with its exhaust flanges re-oriented - which is not the same thing at all. and you would think they would have just used a standard lhs 412 single pot muffler on the 914, but they didn't. the muffler that came off my 914 appeared to be factory original. had a date stamp. it was not something that would have fitted to a 412. the impressions for the fan housing were pointing down.

so there is something strange and unique for the case of the 411 and 412 lhs single pot late style muffler update/supercede that i have never found in any parts diagrams.

[lateral]

Hi guys

Sorry for the very late replies and followup.

Thanks to everyone who has replied and commented.

I've just come back and have decided to pull the engine and to rebuild it and to make it all nice and shiny as well!.

I want to get the correct exhaust for the car so that the tailpipe exits out of the left hand side cutout of the rear cheese grate grill.

After a bit more googling etc, I have found the following new muffler from DANKS:

https://jpgroup.dk/en/p/Exhaust-rear--OE-style--wi.../14423354/

They also have 2 differing tailpipes:

https://jpgroup.dk/en/p/Tail-pipe-with-damper--len.../14581323/


https://jpgroup.dk/en/p/Tail-pipe-with-damper--len.../14586338/


Can somebody please look and confirm which one is the correct tailpipe so that it exits the cutout?

I'm thinking the shorter (765mm) version but I'm not sure.

Cheers
Greg

[Pelle]

This is a Dansk muffler with the longer tail pipe. Yours should hav the shorter version that exit straight to the rear.

[wonkipop]