My exhaust fell off today. Yeah.

[servohead]

So I went on a nice hour drive on the highway this morning (business trip) driving normally just like everybody else. Nothing special, no huge bumps or road debris to hit. I pull into the parking lot and shut the motor down. I thought... "did something sound weird there? eh whatever..its fine" I then walked around the car and found the left muffler pipes hanging lower than the right. Weird. Took a look underneath and found that the factory weld on the flange on the muffler side just separated. Like bad glue. The pipe was hanging down and everything. What the crap? Does this happen commonly with stock exhaust?
So anyway, I safety wired the pipes together the best I could and drove her home to my work and welded the flange back on. While I was there I added to the other skimpy looking welds on the catback. All is well now.

God do I have bad luck.

 

[67HEAVEN]

My exhaust fell off today. Yeah.

Oops..........looks like I picked it up.

 

[bradfordsvettes]

this happened on my friends 2000vert and he ended up getting new pipes because it was part of the cat section and under warranty for 8/80 good deal for him steve

 

[BlackNBlue95]

this happened on my friends 2000vert and he ended up getting new pipes because it was part of the cat section and under warranty for 8/80 good deal for him steve

This is common I've see it happen.. IF the flang breaks off on the CAT side of the system then it should be coverd 8/80 but it the flange for the muffler side breaks it's not coverd..

and the dealer if under warranty will probably just weld it back together as the stock cats are a pretty penny. I say this based off my personal experiance at a chevy dealer..
-=Rick

 

[servohead]

AAh, I see, so it's good that I didn't waste any time and just welded it back up on my own!

 

[BlackNBlue95]

I know I didn't explain this right.. I forgot to say..

The 8/80 is for emissions related items.. the cats are considerd such the mufflers are not.. thats why the flange on the cat side would be coverd.. because it's all 1 piece from the headers back to the muffler flange. They had alot of problems with factory welds breaking.. well enought that we have seen them happen a few times...
-=Rick

 

[wishuwerehere82]

My buddy had that happen to a set of Tri Flow mufflers on his '97 after 36,000 miles. The welds just let loose on the pipes, and they didn't look like very good welds to begin with.
TriFlow said to send them back top the factory to see if they would be covered under warranty. Yeah, right. We re-welded the flanges with an additional re-enforcement bracket on both sides.
Good as new!

 

[servohead]

So this is interesting. I suppose that the flange where the catback bolts to the cat pipes is rather highly stressed. I'll know for sure how highly stressed it is when the weld I just made breaks! (which is about twice as thick as the factorys.)

 

[motorman]

So I went on a nice hour drive on the highway this morning (business trip) driving normally just like everybody else. Nothing special, no huge bumps or road debris to hit. I pull into the parking lot and shut the motor down. I thought... "did something sound weird there? eh whatever..its fine" I then walked around the car and found the left muffler pipes hanging lower than the right. Weird. Took a look underneath and found that the factory weld on the flange on the muffler side just separated. Like bad glue. The pipe was hanging down and everything. What the crap? Does this happen commonly with stock exhaust?
So anyway, I safety wired the pipes together the best I could and drove her home to my work and welded the flange back on. While I was there I added to the other skimpy looking welds on the catback. All is well now.

God do I have bad luck.

did you have one of those corvette plates the bolts between the exhaust pipes? if you watch a C-5 exhuast from the rear you see when you gas the engine 1 side pipe goes up and the other side goes down so tieing them together with one of these plates will cause a bind on the exhaust system which could cause the welds to break

 

[servohead]

ooh thats a good point, but I don't have one of those plates on my car. Now that I know that they bolt to the exhaust plates I'll be sure to stay away. good point though!