“Exhausting” experience

[mdsalemi]

Well...my car has driven extensive distances to every PUB and event I've been to. Never gave me any trouble. but I must have not gotten under the car recently enough to detect broken rubber exhaust donuts. You see, about 150 miles south of Chicago, along I65 in Indiana, trucks started flashing me from behind and then this awful scraping sound. I was doing 70 MPH, and unfortunately due to all of Indiana having their interstates slowing being worked on (it's never, ever been completed and never will be) I was in a zone of two lanes with no shoulder and no place to pull over. For 15 miles I drove like this. Finally I was able to pull over and noted that ALL the exhaust hangers were gone. The entire exhaust system was hanging by the manifold up front and the tail pipes dragging on the pavement at the rear.

Thankfully I had the serendipitous foresight (a/k/a dumb luck) to throw those two fan belts in the car moments before I left, for they saved the day; I was able to temporarily hang the back up enough to complete the journey. Another darn good reason to have US bumper over-riders, as they were the hang point!

Once at PagodaFest the call went out, and I managed to get plenty of rubber donuts, though only two in the back would fit. A huge debt of gratitude to our members Ray Hays and David Robinson who assisted me in hanging the muffler system back up and wiring the other points where we could not get donuts in place. It was a robust enough fix that I made it home yesterday with no issues.

...and it's a good thing I didn't yet invest in the square exhaust tips. The nice tips I did have, from Authentic Classics, went shooting behind me at 70MPH (hopefully didn't damage anybody's car or truck) as soon as those tips hit the pavement.  Our friends from Vintage Euro Parts had a replacement set for me right at the event.

[badali]

You are lucky the pipes didn't get caught on something and break.

I had to replace my center hangers this year.  They were installed in 2009 with my new exhaust before my first trip to Blacklick.  They were hanging by a thread and would bang the exhaust when I started up the car for the first time of this driving season.

[John Betsch - "SADIE"]

Another example of  our sl113 Pagoda group in action -- one for all and all for one!  I probably would have been a basket case! Thanks for posting and reinforcing a known confidence to all about 113.org!

[thelews]

Glad you got home without incident Michael.

I left on Saturday after lunch for home back in Milwaukee.  A ride up I355 to I294 past O'hare and then on to 94 to Milwaukee.  Just past O'hare, traffic slowed down and I shifted (manual transmission) back to 2nd.  Traffic sped up and I shifted to 3rd and the gearshift lever went straight down!  I pulled it back up and shifted to 4th and began praying that traffic would keep moving and I wouldn't need any more gear changes.  I'd let go of the gearshift, top down, 80 mph, 4 lanes of traffic, getting passed on the left when I thought I'd heard a rattling noise.  It was the gearshift having sunk down again.  I pulled it up and then held it there with my right hand (cramping) for the next 1.5 hours home and steering with my left.  Fortunately, I didn't have to change gears the rest of the way, made it to my exit, got back to 3rd and went the next 2 miles home.  In my driveway I did discover 1st and 2nd were also doable, but I wasn't about to stop before my home to find out as long as I was still moving at speed. 

What happened is the lower gearshift bushing disintegrated allowing the gearshift to just drop straight down and ride on top of the driveshaft (rattling noise).  It's all apart now, waiting for 12 bushings to change them all.  Sure glad it didn't happen during the event!

[Bshaunessy]

Michael Salumi:
  Great story.  I had a similar experience last month when on the way to a local Rocky Mountain car show and shine (more than 1000 cars …mosstly American muscle).   All my donuts on the entire ( newly installed) exhaust system were missing!…..where do those donuts go?
  I think my issue with the flying donuts was self inflicted as I did the exhaust system myself.  LESSON LEARNED: the hangers ( three) must be precisely aligned or….your donuts will fly away!
  All good now but missed the car show!

[rwmastel]

What's 1143.org?   

[ja17]

Well Michael, I must admit I have used fan belts to hang exhaust in an emergency also! In fact I use the same technique for temporarily holding the exhaust up during installation of a new system when welding pipe connections. Some old metal water hose clamps can also be used for emergency hangers also. At one time you could order heavy duty rubber hangers from Mercedes for severe road conditions. The rubber hangers had metal chain molded into the rubber for re-enforcement. The part number for the re-enforced rubber hangers was #107 492 00 44. I suspect that they might be a little stiffer and harder to install?

[Cees Klumper]

I carry 4 spare new donuts in the trunk, having experienced failures in the distant past.

[John Betsch - "SADIE"]

What's 1143.org?  That's poor typing!  Fixed.

[mdsalemi]

As a follow on and more complete information...

When I arrived at PagodaFest on Thursday afternoon, and told my tales of woe to my fellow members, Hugh Whipple (whipcity) who was one of the organizers with me on the PagodaFest committee immediately called his friends at Euroquipe, one of the sponsors. Adam from Euroquipe brought a small bag of donuts on Friday. Also, another member of the organizing committee, Dave Onyschuk, had two in his trunk (along with some from Volvo and BMW). So, by Friday, I had a two bags of donuts, six in total, plus the needed coat hangers.

Some of the donuts looked like they were rubber but had zero give, and unless I was able to drop them in boiling water to soften them up, no way they would fit around the hangers. Dave's donuts had some give, so on the rear, we used one soft donut and one firm donut. Ray Hays suggested dropping the hanger and installing the donuts instead of trying to stretch them around the already installed hangers. That was a great idea. But for the other two locations, behind the rear muffler and in the center, no way we could stretch these. That's when the coat hangers came in handy. With a tarp supplied by Dave, we were able to do this without getting too messy, just our hands.

Now the task is to order six proper donuts, jack the car up on stands, and start from the front of the car and re-hang and re-align it all. It is a SS TimeValve system.

[wwheeler]

The number Joe gave is the correct number (..00 44) and just confirmed with the classic center. Probably 5 X the cost as the standard non reinforced. I have these on my W111 and they will fight you the entire time trying to install them. Other than for the security blanket, I also used them to bring up the height of my tailpipes which were lower than desired with the standard donut.

[afibbe]

I keep a roll of duct tape and a few wire hangers in my trunk. They don’t take up much space and can fix a lot of things. Food for thoughts

[mdsalemi]

And now, the rest of the story...

Upon return from Chicago, I ordered the OEM set of donuts/hangers from the Classic Center. Happily of all our normal suppliers, these OEM versions were the least costly; just $3.60 each for the four smaller ones, and $4.40 each for the two larger ones. The larger ones are located towards the center of the car, the four smaller ones at the rear on either side of the final muffler.

My hydraulic floor jack, which was old and had not been used in a while, wouldn't raise beyond 6" when it is supposed to go to 14", so I used the car's jack, removed the wheel. Using an electrician's pliers, I removed all the temporary wire, then with a deep well socket, I removed the bracket. I installed the new larger rubber donuts in the center, and using a bicycle tire iron such as this: https://a.co/d/hgkrs3N I was easily able to stretch the rubbers over the brackets with little effort.

Unfortunately while underneath, I was able to fully see the damage caused by dragging the muffler assembly for 15 miles on I65: the pipes had scraped enough to get a hole in them (small but a hole nonetheless) and the seam of the muffler was compromised as well. I'll get a replacement TimeValve set up when I can (they said about a 2 week wait), but this damage was temporarily repaired with some exhaust system "goop" found at an auto parts store. See the photo.

Stretching the rubbers over the rearmost mounts proved to be the most challenging, but a very long flat bladed screwdriver was the key on that one.

I don't know exactly how long a set of exhaust rubber mounts is supposed to last, but honestly the full set was inexpensive enough and changing them relatively easy in the comfort of my driveway (way easier if you had a lift of any kind) that prior to any long trip in the future, these will be checked and or changed as necessary.

[rwmastel]

Mike driving to Pagoda Fest

[rwmastel]

Glad things are sorted, thanks for sharing the details.  I've never used the stock car jack.  It is sooooo tilted when first attaching it to the car that it seemed it would be unsteady.  Very similar with the W210 I had and its jack.  These "leaning tower of Pisa" jacks always make me nervous.  Did it seem safe to you?

[mdsalemi]

Glad things are sorted, thanks for sharing the details.  I've never used the stock car jack.  It is sooooo tilted when first attaching it to the car that it seemed it would be unsteady.  Very similar with the W210 I had and its jack.  These "leaning tower of Pisa" jacks always make me nervous.  Did it seem safe to you?

Whether it felt safe or not is not relevant. Nobody who values their life should ever get underneath a car without a solid jack stand for safety. I used the car jack because my hydraulic one failed. I used the car jack not to jack the car up to get underneath, but to jack it up to place the jack stand--which you can clearly see in the photo.

[thelews]

Couldn't the small holes and seam be welded by a shop?  They're on the bottom, so easy to reach.

Speaking of MB prices, I changed all 12 shift linkage bushings while I was in there.  $185 for bushings!  Two of them alone, the ones where the adjustment rods anchor to the transmission were $36 each.  All I could do was laugh.  6 bushings, relatively cheap, would have cleaned up my problem completely, but it seemed prudent to freshen them all.  Linkage is very tight and precise now, not that I thought it was bad before, but there is a difference.

[mdsalemi]

Couldn't the small holes and seam be welded by a shop?  They're on the bottom, so easy to reach.

You're absolutely right. In a perfect world, I could find a shop with experience in welding stainless, have them beef up the worn sections of pipe with additional 304 stainless. Ditto on the seam on the resonator. However the thought of going through all that effort in finding a place around here to do that seems daunting. My limited (just shy of four years) experience around here tells me while these places do exist (this IS the land of NASCAR and most of its engineering), either everyone is too busy, or nobody wants small jobs or both. I generally don't take no for an answer thus can only envision spending an enormous amount of time calling in favors, asking the car guys around here, chasing down dead end leads--when in fact it might just be easier to get the new piece and install it myself.

There's a good reason why, after exhaustive (pardon the pun) search for body work for his crashed Pagoda, AlexD sent his to Michigan (where it's just about done and ready to ship back home to NC to him) instead of having the work done down here.

[rwmastel]

Whether it felt safe or not is not relevant. Nobody who values their life should ever get underneath a car without a solid jack stand for safety.

Relax, I didn't say anything about getting under the car.  I just don't think it looks like it would even lift the car without the bottom of the jack sliding out or something.  Just doesn't seem stable for lifting the car enough to get a jack stand under it.  Same design for the jack that came with my 1997 W210.  Obviously, you succeeded, but it just appears like a strange design to me.  Then again, I don't have any experience with other cars of the '60s so I don't have any comparisons for how other companies did it.

[GM]

Aren't there supposed to be asbestos (or other) heat shields to protect the donuts?

[wwheeler]

My W111 does have a green fiber gasket type material between the donuts and muffler in the rear. Not sure about W113.

Just received my reinforced exhaust donuts. #107 492 00 44. They are definitely different in appearance and probably a better design. Not for the purest though. They are unbelievably stiff in one direction but not too bad stretching. A result of the internal chain I suppose. See attached. I'll be installing these when I get a chance. 

[dirkbalter]

Aren't there supposed to be asbestos (or other) heat shields to protect the donuts?

Yes, I was wondering the same.

https://www.niemoeller.de/en/w113/w113/B043/492/d49172-insulation~2

[wwheeler]

Not sure this new design will fit on the W113 front mount with donuts looking at the pictures. The W113 mount is different than on my W111. The rear should fit but will have to be stretched over the bracket.

[mdsalemi]

I just don't think it looks like it would even lift the car without the bottom of the jack sliding out or something.  Just doesn't seem stable for lifting the car enough to get a jack stand under it. 

It works very well. Easy to lift, very stable.

[mdsalemi]

Yes, I was wondering the same.

https://www.niemoeller.de/en/w113/w113/B043/492/d49172-insulation~2

There does seem to be a heat shield for these, and that looks like the part. I've seen these line drawings of "exhaust kits" that include it but no explanation of what they were including. From the line drawing/exploded view however, it doesn't look like it would do much good; unless I'm reading the schematic wrong, it shows the insulation sitting on top of the pipes whereas the rubber is attached below the pipes. Maybe they have it wrong? Maybe it goes below the pipes to actually keep some heat away from the rubber? Thoughts?