Well I purchased my Tanabe exhaust years ago and it has gotten quite a bit louder so I decided that if I can repack the muffler on a motorcycle then I can do the same on my car. I only documented the process on one of the mufflers but there are two in the system and I figured it would be redundant to show it all twice. Here is the progress thus far. First I cut out a section in order to get inside the muffler itself. I did not expect to see a lot of packing but I was really suprised on what I found.
All of the packing had deteriorated to the point that it was just like dirt and a few pieces that kind of resembled fiberglass matting.
The stuff in the bottom was kinda stuck there so i had to bust it up a little in order to get it all out.
After that I started cleaning it out.
Now I had to check and make sure that the perforations were still intact and were not blocked.
Then I cleaned out the body and prepped it for the new packing.
Here is the new packing. I picked it up from the local motorcycle shop. They had it for $7.00 a package and it took three to do each muffler. Two might have been ok but I did not want to skimp.
Here is the first piece going in.
Now that it was in I wire tied it to the pipe.
Now that it was securely in there now I started putting in the second piece which will cover the bottom of the muffler and up to the sides.
Here is the second piece in place.
Now the third and last piece goes in and covers the top and fills in the rest of the voids on the sides.
Now all I have to do is weld the top back in and it will all be done and very quiet once again.
26OCT2007
Here is the update after welding up the mufflers. I had to flatten out the piece that I sectioned out to fill the gap left from the cutting wheel but it was not a big deal. Here is two shots of the mufflers.
After installing there was a huge difference in the decibel level all the way from Idle up to WOT. I am very pleased as well.
