why cant anything go right?

[evan938]

last weekend my muffler on the integra decided to rust out. no biggie, ill find another one. i wasnt even mad because, well, its 12 years old, im suprised it lasted that long.

i finally find a muffler locally on friday. schedule w/ the guy to pick it up on saturday. go get it saturday, sunday (today) i go to my dads to install it.

jack the rear end up, find the flange, as expected, bolts are pretty rusted...try to find impact gun, no luck. he hid it somewhere while "cleaning". bust out the socket wrench and rubber mallet, get one bolt about 2-3 turns out, and it snaps. ****. go to the 2nd one. about 1/2 turn, snaps. i said **** it, ill put the new muffler on, use some c-clamps until i can get it to the shop tomorrow (ghetto, i know).

so i hang the new muffler, looks good, go to line it up w/ the mid pipe, its about 2-3" too SHORT. so i try to pull the muffler forward, and the f'in flanges dont even line up. this muffler is from a 94 gsr, and i have a 95. the 94-97 are pretty much the same car.

so right now, i have this muffler so jimmy rigged together to keep my car quiet, there are 2 c-clamps holding the flanges together, and i think theyre not gonna hold much longer. hopefully the tuffy down the street from me can do something for me tomorrow morning, quickly. hell, i dont care if its slip clamped together, just to get this thing back on the road

[jh0n]

It must be the heat and or rust / vibration, but exhaust nuts and bolts snap will alarming regularity.. I drown the mothers in WD40 or similar ( Inox is good ) and hope for the best. I find once its moving, 2 turns out and a turn back in as you back it off works too.

Impact works well with the above, as you found out when they are stuck on, lateral torque you put on with a normal wrench acts towards breaking the bolts / nuts due to the exhaust not being completely solid. If you can get an acomplice to hold to zorst solidly or brace it somehow, this works too.

No help to you now though eh.. Next time maybe :)

[bdiggy]

Sucks dude! It's alway's something you think is gonna be so easy too.

[ghrpdx]

This is the reason why I generally pay a professional anymore even though I am skilled enough to do the work. I'd rather pay someone to deal with the headaches while I go play.

Hope you get it all straightened out!

[jh0n]

I`m as mean as cat piss with money, but when it comes to exhaust, I`m voting with ghrpdx on this one. I don`t have a hoist, oxy or mig like a muffler shop has.

Best part, you can take it back if it leaks.

[evan938]

well, i woke up today, went to a shop thats like a site sponsor on our local forum, the guy is out of business. S**T. so i go to tuffy, they estimate it to be 1.5 hours, 134$. ugh. 1 hour later, the guy is done, so i ask him how much its gonna go down (since they didnt use that extra 1/2 hour), he says thats for everything they quoted me. got into it with them for a minute, but it didnt go anywhere. the exhaust is fixed but i wont be going to tuffy anymore. pricks

[ricerrx7]

That's how automotive pricing works. There is a set time in the book for how long something should take. If they had taken longer, would you have let them charge you more?

[evan938]

not on a custom job. i mean, if it was something like, say, timing belt, book says 4 hours, its a set price, thats fine. when its a custom job where he says "it might take me about an hour and a half", thats guessing how long its gonna take him, i should be charged for only what time he used

[ricerrx7]

That's why a service writer should never quote a time, only a price. Either that, or if it takes us less time to do than we told the customer, we usually keep their car in the shop until the time is up...
Avoids headaches for us...

[Cypher]

should've just used a torch. that'd have gotten them off no problem.

i agree with adam. its how the auto world works. just deal with it.

[WytchDctr]

When i had a/c installed on my accent the quote was 1200, I wrote the check for 890something because it didn't take them long at all to install it. My dealership is awesome :-). Sorry to hear about your issues evan.

[2loud2k2xd]

"why cant anything go right"

cause you bought a hon-duh!!!

oh wait, so did I, and its the best thing i could have done.

[djarsonist]

Prolly cuz your an OSU fan.....
LOL, that does suck though.


PEACE
dj arsonist

[evan938]

honestly, i wasnt mad at the fact the bolts snapped, i was more pissed that the new muffler i paid 40$ for didnt fit

i looked at it today, and the exhaust seems to be a tad bit crooked. i know when i was under the car, with the new muffler hanging, it was hitting the spare tire well, so it looks like he at least turned it a bit so it didnt rattle on that


im over it, car is fixed, i can actually feel a difference with some backpressure back on the system