I remade the exhaust for my cruiser today.
A little background.. A couple of things worked out for us recently, which allowed me to take advantage of "Black Friday". First off, I got a nice little wire feed welder for around 40% of it's normal price (and a couple of other things, of course). Then went and got a short bottle of cougar 25 welding gas for it. I hit Princess Auto (which is similar to Harbour Freight) and picked up an assortment of stuff including a tube bending kit.
I picked up a brand new 12' long piece of 3/4" conduit at the local Habitat for Humanity Restore for $1 to play with.
So anyway, first off I had to get an idea of what the pipe between the expansion chamber and muffler had to be shaped like. Along comes an old friend of mine from years ago when I was a draftsman, a flexible curve:
Once I had an idea of what I needed, I bent some conduit to match (this is the tube bending kit and curve's package is there):
So, I pulled the expansion pipe from the bike with the intent of attaching the exhaust pipe. Something was loose and rattling inside the chamber, though, so I had to cut it open. Turns out there was a tube with a 'cap' tack welded on it that might once have been tacked to the stem at the exit of the chamber. Got rid of it and welded the tip back on the chamber. Also had to reweld the last four inches or so of the bottom seam on the chamber, too. Then I attached the new pipe to the chamber, and the muffler to the end of the new pipe. My welds aren't pretty, but for the first welding I've done in around 2 decades they could be worse.
I got as far as fitting it up before I ran out of time to work with. The bend needs a tweak, it's not quite clear of the crank, and I need to make up a few hanger brackets. With luck I'll get to them soon.
A little background.. A couple of things worked out for us recently, which allowed me to take advantage of "Black Friday". First off, I got a nice little wire feed welder for around 40% of it's normal price (and a couple of other things, of course). Then went and got a short bottle of cougar 25 welding gas for it. I hit Princess Auto (which is similar to Harbour Freight) and picked up an assortment of stuff including a tube bending kit.
I picked up a brand new 12' long piece of 3/4" conduit at the local Habitat for Humanity Restore for $1 to play with.
So anyway, first off I had to get an idea of what the pipe between the expansion chamber and muffler had to be shaped like. Along comes an old friend of mine from years ago when I was a draftsman, a flexible curve:
Once I had an idea of what I needed, I bent some conduit to match (this is the tube bending kit and curve's package is there):
So, I pulled the expansion pipe from the bike with the intent of attaching the exhaust pipe. Something was loose and rattling inside the chamber, though, so I had to cut it open. Turns out there was a tube with a 'cap' tack welded on it that might once have been tacked to the stem at the exit of the chamber. Got rid of it and welded the tip back on the chamber. Also had to reweld the last four inches or so of the bottom seam on the chamber, too. Then I attached the new pipe to the chamber, and the muffler to the end of the new pipe. My welds aren't pretty, but for the first welding I've done in around 2 decades they could be worse.
I got as far as fitting it up before I ran out of time to work with. The bend needs a tweak, it's not quite clear of the crank, and I need to make up a few hanger brackets. With luck I'll get to them soon.
