beauty & the beast , an exausting tale

[kuzikood]

well i once told a story of my last homemade exaust where i described it being a multi chamber made out of an old computer desk a oil can half a briggs muffler a skin from a old van muffler , and supported by some steel brakeline . prehaps the uggliest thing ever made , i diddnt bother grinding welds or cleaning it up i just sprayed some grill paint on it and despite everything and being held up by coathangers it actually lasted longer than any other exaust i had on the scoot including factory . in fact its still together ive kept it just in case my new SS exaust ever breaks .and i finnaly could afford one of the slip fit P&P SS exaust systems sold on ebay, scooter tronics and a few other sites so i took some pics and videos of before and after so here is the exausting tale of two mufflers told by pics and vids

[kuzikood]

and now the video .......

and how its constructed.......

[kuzikood]

and heres the beauty part.......




and now the video..........

[Rebel]

You know, the new one is prettier, but the cobbled together one has much more character.

[kuzikood]

and the guys at work ....im a mechanic at sears, say the cobbled one is definatly me but the shiny one looks and sounds great espeacialy if at closing i get to rev it and tear ass thru the shop gotta love the echo ...dont worry the couple times ive done it we did it safely everyone knew i was doin it and was watching no customer cars etc

[Rocketdog]

You win the cobbled together championship Kuzi. That looks like the headers and mufflerx I had on a '64 Impala when I was 16.

[kuzikood]

oh gawd ya dont want to see some of the cobbled nitemars ive had under cars and trucks lol

[usfmarine]

I almost lost my lunch when I saw the cobbled one. That thing is hideously awesome!

With your new exhaust, does your riding weight plus road bumps cause your muffler to hit your body panels? Looks pretty close.

[kuzikood]

yea it scrubs it doesent hit or make contact enough to break the plast just a lil chaffing cant see it unless your looking for it ....im gonna do some body repair on some cracked pannels soon and when i don im gonna try to heat up the plastic with a heat gun and using a blunt piece of wood im gonna mold in a reliefe i.e. soften the plastic and gently push it in enough to give clearence esentially denting the plastic ...heatguns are awesome lol maybe i should put the hideous pipe on ebay and see if there are any bids lol

[therustyaxe]

That was great, that cobbled one is something else, lol.

I would stick with the P&P tho, just my half cent.

[phaze5]

i'll never go to sears again lol +1 for the use of wire and the convient oil fill spout holder,hanger muffler bracketry

then you have the new muffler smell you've been missing lol, tell your wife that's pistons she's smellin.

it' lookin good now, please don't take it off and bash it around a light pole anymore haha

[kuzikood]

2 things....... it aint gotta be pretty to work , but it helps and two.... ya gotta do what ya gotta do to keep ridin !. lol i need to make a few of those for rat rods and sell on ebay lol . the welds look like hell but notice ya dont see lil pieces of mig wire stuck anywhere ...... i can weld......... not pretty ........but i can weld ....lol actually im better with stick welding i taught myself to stick weld fabricating floor pans for junk cars i was redoing cuz the $100 stick welder i bought 10 years ago from walmart was all i could afford now theres a challenge stick welding irregular sheet metal . but honestly my time is sooooooo limited since my scoot is a dailey driver and i work a revolving shchedual so usaully if i have to do something on the scoot i have about 2 hours to diagnose, desighn, fabricate, test, and cleanup/make pretty. lol right now i only have simple fabrication tools i.e. 120volt gasless mig, grinder,sawzall , cordless drill, and a 32 ounce estwing framing hammer . some more fab tools are in the near future dear gawd i need a good vice ,anvil, drill press, bench grinder, disk/belt sander,sheetmetal brake , etc lol if i could only win a 10k gift certificate to harbour freight

[phaze5]

if you do win the harbor freight g/c sell it and go to craftsman lol.

if you want to be the best you have to show quality work imo. that's what makes you or breaks you in the end keep practicin, that's the only way to get better imo.

[kuzikood]

lol i work for sears (mechanic in auto center) craftsman is mostly made in china now and really is no better quality than the harbor freight stuff these days , the tools at HF are good quality cept the bearings are pisspoorly lubed just like the bearings in our scoots but a lil PDI on there stuff before ya use it , just like our scoots and it will last a lifetime , and as far as the hand tools , i use both crapsman HF stuff daily and they work equally as well, when i do something for me its usaully to just get down the road its done strong, not pretty , if i had timje for pretty i would , when i do something for someone else is a differant story , until i can find time to run a dedicated 30 amp circuit to the barn , im stuck running my welder off a 50 foot extention cord, not the best for a quality weld bead but gets the job done

[Rebel]

I'm sorry to hear that about Craftsman tools. At one time a tool that was made in the USA was about as good a tool as you could get, now I guess there are no more of those either. i do use HF equipment, it just is so affordable, I also have bought some Craftsman power tools, just hoping they would be better quality than HF. So I guess I'll just stop buying tools from Sears, it was the last thing I did buy there, seems sears will go the way of the car makers if they don't get their act together.