Mufflered
Mufflered
Mufflered
My new muffler came in from Germany this week, so I swung by the dealership at lunch and picked it up. A beautiful thing to behold, for sure.
The old muffler, which appeared to be a domestic aftermarket part, had rotted out on both ends and was beginning to rust on the outside. You can see what I’m talking about below.
It wasn’t too bad to get loose - I had soaked the clamp and joint with KROIL last night, so the clamp came right off. The joint appeared to be loose, but it just wouldn’t move completely. Upon close inspection, I found that the installer had run a short bead with a welder or brazing rod at the joint on the top for about a half an inch. I took a hacksaw to the bead right where it met the muffler pipe and scored it. Once I started moving things around it cracked, freeing up the muffler and not damaging the pipe.
Interestingly, the pipe the previous installer used appeared to be a metric size, but it was the same diameter as the muffler inlet pipe. Hmm. A trip to my FLAPS yielded a couple of different fittings to join the pipe and muffler together along with an expanding tool in case I needed a little change in the dimensions.
I had to expand the fitting just slightly and it slipped right into place on both pipes. Nice. It did displace the muffler position just slightly to the rear, but not enough to bother the hanger O rings or any clearances. Note the old clamp is a standard “U” clamp and my new clamp is the proper Mercedes kind. May have to swap that old one out for consistency...
And now I have a nice stock muffler in place. The car definitely sounds better. I need to get a couple of the rubber bumpers that go between the muffler and the chassis, so those will go on my next stock order. Now I just need to get a chrome tip for it, but I really cringe at paying $75 for one from the dealer. I’ll probably give in and do it eventually, as just looking at the straight pipe out the back the car will bug me.
Good for another 20+ years!
Thursday, March 28, 2019