VX Exhaust leak
 

I have an exhaust leak where the "axle pipe" meets the muffler. She finally rusted through. Rather than spend $350 at a muffler shop, I bought the OEM pipe, muffler, and hardware online (Bill Kay Honda) and had them shipped for $148.00. When the parts come in, I get the fun job of installation.

Having never worked on an exhaust before, is there anything I should know before I lay a wrench on this thing?

FYI, the B-pipe is 2 years old, and does not need replacing.

I did a similar repair on my Accord a few months ago.

1. Be sure you have the correct gasket to join the new pipe to the old pipe before you start.

2. Don't worry when you twist off the bolts that hold those two pipes together. When you replace them, you may be tempted to use some really hard bolts- but instead use soft ones- twisting off exhaust bolts and replacing them is much more pleasant than loosening a nut from a long rusty bolt. If you strip the heads, just use a dremmel with little cutting wheel to cut the bolts.

3. The key to getting those rubber exhaust hangers to slide on/off their "hooks" is to rock them back and forth as you push on them.

Wear goggles. Rust doesn't feel good in the eyes.

Wear gloves. Rust doesn't feel good in fresh cuts. Fresh cuts don't feel good either.

When I've worked on exhaust it's been pretty straightforward, just hard work on rusty crap.

just thinking out of the box...

guys, honestly, do a little research, even try to barter. i once asked a mechanic to match a bolt-on cat and pipe(that i would do myself) to his welding price of cat only. he accepted!

recently, i shopped around to have my ENTIRE exhaust replaced(everything back of the manifold). he welded/installed the pipes, resonator, cat, muffler, and tail pipe cap for %175+ tax.

Good luck.

Exhaust systems are one thing I take to the nice man at Midas (or someplace like that). I've done my share of jerry-rigging, and have never had it come out good. It's usually not that expensive, and everything is welded. I don't like carbon-monoxide in the car...makes me sleepy....
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Just got done doing mine, but instead of OEM, I went with the Bosal from Rockauto. I did the full cat-back for $170 shipped.

On that section, spray WD-40/penetrating oil on the pre-muffler/resonator side a few days before you try and remove anything. I cannot remember if the stock exhaust was this way too, but I know that the replacement exhaust had the nuts welded to the flange. You really do not want the bolts to break if this is the case because you will have to find a way to remove the broken bolts, or will have to try and drill it out and buy new ones.... Neither will be fun.

If you got all the OEM hardware you should have the springs and the bolts. The springs were a PITA to try and compress while getting the bolt to line up and start the threads (WITHOUT cross-threading) especially without a lift. What ended up making it a lot easier is I ran zip ties ton opposite sides and compressed the spring and tightened the zip ties. This made the job a TON easier and you can just snip the zip ties and pull them out.

Do not know where in Indy you live, but just moved from where I was on the NE side (McCordsville) down to the southside (Greenwood), so let me know if you would like some help.

I got rust in my eyes from my old roommate's 1993 Accord LX (at 417,000 miles!). They've never been the same since.

I appreciate the offer. I may have to take you up on that. I have a flat driveway and really tall jackstands. My garage is too narrow to work on it inside. I have all of the tools that should be necessary for the job.

PM me if you'd like to work on it sometime in the next 2 weekends.

Will check what is going on and see what day(s) might work best. Need to change the brakes on my DX and a halfshaft, we could make it a FE mod day... lol

Need to find a day that it is not going to be 90* and humid though. :thumbdown:

The half-shaft can be a b****. I changed one on my old '99 Si after I sold it to my brother. That was a pain. Do not even attempt it without good air tools, a ball-joint separator, and a really long breaker bar for the axle nut.

Already done them before when I had my '93 Civic coupe. I do not really remember them being that hard though. I know I did not use my air compressor and air tools (I hardly ever do... Kinda makes me wonder why I have a 60 gallon compressor... lol), but I do have a ball-joint separator (both fork and press) and a breaker bar with "big black" (my thick walled pipe I slide over the end of the breaker bar for more leverage).

Definitely would be a lot easier if they did not go through the fork at the bottom of the strut.

When I did the Si, I needed to detach the lower control arm from the hub and brake assembly. After removing the front anti-roll bar. After removing the brakes. For some reason (the car was lowered, had bigger brakes, thicker anti-roll bars, and all kinds of fun hardware), it was a really tough job.

Yesterday I could not remember how I did it, but while doing my brakes last night and examining how I would do the halfshaft, it all came back to me.

The way I did it, was I left the lower ball joint alone, I removed the top 3 strut bolts, the 2 UCA bolts (leaving the upper ball joint attached) and then removed the bolt throught the LCA/strut fork. I then just pulled the whole strut assembly out and halfshaft was easy to change at that point, and then just put everything back together. Might give that method a try if you have one go out in the future. I have to admit, I hate dealing with the ball joints (as I always seem to rip the boots), so I try and avoid them... lol