Rear exhaust replacement

Certainly not glamorous or a hard task but thought may be good for some people dipping there toes into saving some money and keeping their van on the road.

So it must be over a year now since my middle silencer had enough of the rust and made a break for it and with it breaking before the silencer it made a lot of noise so I had to replace that pretty quick. In doing so I put new exhaust clamps on so it made today’s job much easier.

I had not really noticed the van had been any louder but out and about one day I saw the rear exhaust hanging low and on investigating could see the pipe had sheered going into it and also some large rust holes suggesting it had been this way for a while.

Not really causing me any trouble I just removed the rear silencer and drove it like that for a while till I got around to ordering a new rear exhaust. This was probably the same as having one of the side exit exhausts except it not coming out the side.

A quick check around and purchased a Rear Silencer from eBay which came from Poland within three days. I would advise getting new exhaust clamps at this point to make it easy in the future and also in case you need to cut off old ones. Another shopping item would be exhaust paste so when it all shows up you are ready to go.

Jack up the van enough to slide under and use axle stands. Remove exhaust clamp if rusted on or just cut it off. I then clean up the pipe where the joint will be with sandpaper.

Exhaust paste on the pipe, offer new exhaust up to van and fit into rubber hangers slide the exhaust onto the pipe and add a bit more paste you can then slide it together as far as it will go and check the exhaust isn’t hitting the chassis which it might be if not pushed far enough together.  I do also check a couple of days later for any leaks and will re seal with more paste if needed.

Tighten up exhaust clamp perpendicular to the slots in pipe make sure it clamps well. I then start up the van to check for obvious leaks if no leak put a rag over the tail pipe and check for a loss of pressure if so it will amplify where the leak is coming from.

Drop the van on the floor and go driving and notice the vans a bit quieter at speed than it has been for a long while. So that was a happy success.