The exhausts
About 2 months back I took my original, bent exhaust pipes (rear half) to a little business in Woking and asked them to bend me a set of pipes in 3 sections that would enable me to 'jig' a replacement system into place back home. A few weeks later (and for a very reasonable sum of money) I had the pipes, along with some flet plate from which I planned to fabrcate new brackets.
The original pipes were fabricated from a number of different curvature pipes with multiple joins. The new pipes are bent from one pipe, hence no joins / welds etc. To enable easy fitment, the new sections were each flanged to accept themselves at one end, with extra length on the non-flanged end. Once on the car, I was then able to easily slide the pipes together, cutting off excess non-flanged length for perfect fitment.
Next were the brackets, all of which had been twisted.
I cut each one off, using it as a template for my new brackets. The new ones are slightly in order to give me a little more clearance where the pipes emerge from the rear of the car. In the photo below, the original (hammered back into shape) is on the left, mine is on the right.
I then welded each bracket onto the new pipes after jigging them against the original pipes.
Once the fabrication was complete, I set about polishing the pipes. As you can see, a little time on the polishing wheel worked wonders.
Finished pipes in place. You can also see the new heatshield recently fitted inside each wheel arch. Not particularly cheap (£110 for 3x5feet sheet) but extremely effective protecton (up to 900 degrees rediant heat, 450 degrees direct heat).
