Exhausting tales

The exhaust was very clean externally, as the pic below shows. It has two pairs of stainless steel headers, connected with a link pipe that runs beneath and behind the sump. 

The link pipe had a big dent - probably caused by bumping up or down a kerb. The silencers are high quality chromed items, made by Motad for Triumph. 

The exhaust is bolted to a bracket via a rubber insulating bung.

The bracket in turn locates on two of the bolts at the rear of the sump. The lugs on this bracket were snapped off. I don't know for sure but I'm guessing it was because the silencers were stuck on the headers and possibly attempts to wrestle them off had resulted in the snapping of the bracket's lugs. 



I couldn't easily tell the internal condition of the silencers so I knew I'd want to get them off the headers at some stage. It made life hard for me to test fit the pipes around the sump because the length of the system is hard to manoeuvre and the silencers themselves are very heavy.

Attempting to test fit the exhaust was hard work with the
silencers stuck to the headers

 After many months of soaking in WD40, the silencers still refused to give up their grip on the exhaust headers. I decided, with regret, that I would use my minigrinder (Dremel clone) to extend the slots in the end of the silencers to allow me to lever them loose.

Extending the slots in the silencers with a mini grinder. 

I clamped the silencer in my pretend workmate, using a towel to protect the chromework and improve the grip. It kept it all steady whilst I made the cut and then twisted the headers out.

 The right-hand headers and silencer were harder to do than the left-hand side. When I did finally get the headers out, it was clear why.

 The inside of the junction had rusted badly though this wasn't visible from the outside. Rust expands and, beneath the right-hand silencer clamp, had the effect of gripping onto the header ever more tightly. So, whilst extending the slot with my grinder released the pressure, it also just showed up the extent of the rust at this point and so a need for me to replace it.

I was then able to clean off the dirt and surface rubbish with a wire brush on my electric drill. The stainless steel is great quality - it responded well to this treatment. I was also able to reduce the dent in the lower edge of the link pipe using a six-inch extension bar from my 1/2 inch drive socket set. I hammered it in and then levered against the inner section of the dent. It's not a perfect repair by any means but will allow the passage of exhaust gases in the way the designers intended. 

Finally, treatment with Solvol cleaned of the residue left behind by the wirebrush treatment and brought out the colour of the stainless rather nicely. 

I removed the old exhaust gaskets with a small chisel, working down wards and assisted by a little hammer. Great care is needed not to put gouges in the sealing surface. As soon as the chisel had bent the old gasket out by a few millimeters, I was then able to lever out the ring.

 I used copper grease to hold the new copper gaskets (from Sprint) in place whilst I fiddled about with the exhaust headers to get them into position. I put the right-hand pair on first because these are the ones fitted with the link pipe bracket. I positioned the link pipe bracket first and then, holding it in place with my left hand, lifted and knocked the headers into their recesses with my right. The bracket is then retained with an M8 35mm stainless bolt.

Stainless steel M8x35mm bolt retains exhaust headers
at the rear of the sump.

 I had previously replaced the exhaust studs with stainless and used stainless nuts, spring and plain washers to retain the headers.

Oil cooler dangling in front of the headers.

Looking more and more like a bike engine every week.