Exhaust Modification

Hello everyone, brand new to the group as of today, Got my 15 year old son a huffy cranbrook from wally-world, along with an 80cc motor as a thing to do together project and a great conversation piece for him. Problem: Exhaust is way too close to front tire, in fact it won't turn one direction. My guess is too heat it up and hope for a good bend, but has anyone else ran into this? Any other snafoo's I should expect coming ahead of us? Thanks everyone.....great looking site, can't wait to really get time to explore it.....Don

My first suggestion would be to try the search feature as this is definitely a common issue. =-) That aside, you have the right idea. Heat and bend carefully. DO NOT ATTEMPT TO DO THIS ON THE BIKE. If you do you will likely break the exhaust studs. IF the bend is too drastic you can pie cut bend and weld. You can also pack with sand for a tight weld with heat to prevent kinking. Good luck.

Are you sure the forks are not backwards?

I have built many cranbrooks and used many different kits and never had one that front tire came close to the muffler. Just wondering if it was assembled wrong from the store which many are. If you could post a pic that would be great. The front forks should curve forward.

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If you're not up to doing the heating and bending yourself, you might take the whole thing into a muffler shop and see how much they'll charge you to bend it. I can't think it would cost too much.

I concur. The Huffy Cranbrook is a very popular bike and there are a lot of them owned by members here. I've never heard of muffler/wheel interference. Post a photo if you can.
Tom

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if you do have to bend it for any reason, here's a thread with some good (and not so good) methods.

Bending bicycle engine exhaust

(p.s. my method works great...)

I think fairracing hit it right on the nose!!! The fork must be facing backwards!

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ok folks....Definetly never claimed to be anything other than a guy from a small town.....the forks were backwards.....picking the bike off the table and spinning them 180 and setting it back up, replacing the motor.....did it..... But I will tell you, I may not be very entheuastic over this kit, but my 15 year old is ate up!! I truely appreciate all the help.....I will post pics as we go along and again....thanks!...Don and Steven.

lmao. Nice catch guys. I was too fixated on the bending part without invoking basic reading comprehension and questioning the problem at hand. Ah, if only all problems had such simple solutions I wouldn't have spent so much money on tools...

=-)

To give Huffy credit, this was NOT their mistake. I purposely purchased the bike unassembeled as my son loves building and creating these kinds of things. I showed him the correction this morning....he just shook his head, walked away mumbling something about how did we not look at that.... gotta laugh...