Taco rocks!

Let me just say that I installed my new flowmasters today, and Taco's how-to was instrumental in providing significant peace of mind and back-up. I like to think I'm nominally handy, but I am certainly not an accomplished car anything...

Anyway, everything went great. I had an alignment issue and **** if the h-pipe suggestion didn't clear it right up...

The sound is great, but after a short ride around the neighborhood, i hear a rattle and it turns out that both mufflers came loose at the mid-pipe connection. So of course I try to tighten them back up, including moving the clamps to straddle the "notch" but without jacking the car up again.

No more rattles or loose joint, but now I seem to have developed an exhaust leak on both sides.

I'm going to jack the car back up and try re-fasterning the clamps tomorrow after mom's day breakfast, but any other tricks or suggestions?

Ok, here are before and after clips

before


After

 

I can tell you from experience, the flowmaster AT clamps suck!. Try getting a U Clamp from a local muffler shop, it will work wonders!

 

I did the same. Tossed the craptacular Flow AT clamps and went with Pypes stainless steel u-clamps of the 2.5" variety. Things seem pretty solidly stuck together back there...

 

don't know about the flowmaster clamps but the rest of the clamps tq connections to 40lbs

 

Jason, you really need to be able to torque down those over-axle clamps. A couple of suggestions:

1. A lot of those clamps have stiff nylon washers that don't compress when trying to torque... what ends up happening is the bolt stops at the washer top and you don't get proper closure (and bolt starts to strip on the threads). You can buy some 'crush' washers (spec'd to the proper torque lbs) which allows further compression when tightening.

2. Another trick I've seen is those Flowmaster clamps are a double-ring setup... quite a few folks with Flows put the centering nub (on over-axle pipe) in-between the two rings.. then tighten it down. This way, the clamp is all the way to the end of the Flowmaster inlet, and straddles the centering nub... seems to eliminate any vibration or leak issues.

3. As other suggest, get some other clamps. I wouldn't use "U-clamps" if you ever plan on taking the axle-backs off again, as the U-clamp has a tendancy to crimp the pipes together.

 

hmmm. No torque wrench here.

Well, I jacked her back up, loosened the clamps, repositioned slightly and re-tightened with the rings saddling the notch nub.

Seem to be together pretty well so far. Only a minor leak at the notch location on the passenger side, driver's side was pretty good so far.

Not sure what else I can do absent new clamps.

What a PITA. Wish I had known about this issue before I bought them. Luckily the baffles seem to be ok for a replacement set...

 

This is what I did. This worked wonders, and I have had my flows on for a year and a half. Since doing this, I have not had any rattles or leaks from my flows. If this doesnt work for you, the u clamps are your best option.