need some ideas guys

[grumpyvette]

my brother-in-laws corvette has newly installed dougs headers and they look and run great, but down here in Florida theres a good deal of moisture in the air, and as a result if you park a corvette outside over night, like he has done several times he has found that on starting the car, the slip joint between the header collectors and side pipes leaks a bit of exhaust and as theres a bit of condensation the result is a fine spray of rust colored moisture for the first few seconds until the headers heat up.
now this wipes off very easily and the headers themselves are not rusting, inspection shows the muffler insert is the source.
what I,m looking for is a way to eliminate the discoloration seeping from the slip fit connection without doing something that will prevent the fairly easy removal of the side pipe for easy replacement of the insert muffler
ANY IDEAS GENTLEMEN?

[C5 Dude]

What about cuting down one of those exhaust donut gaskets to fit inside there and seal it up.

Just a guess as I have never really messed with those types of exhaust. But they look way kewl!

[7TRoadster]

I'm not sure how much room you have between the header and the muffler pipe......

Potentially a thin layer of fiberglass matting might work if you can get it in there. Other than that a bead of silicone inside the muffler tube way at the back?

Grasping at straws but only things I can come up with off the top of my head.

[Sly Vette]

The fit is tight,if they're like mine so any type of "Gasket" is out of the question. I put anti-sieze on mine for ease of removal and it helped for a while but mine are weeping again now also. I will be playing close attention...

[jet1991]

Gun gum or whatever it`s called. Used for sealing joints between mufflers and the exhaust system. It does make the pipes harder to remove though. I did this to my car because the leak was noisy. Made the car sound like a damn Honda Civic.

[blckslvr79]

I loaded mine with anti-seize. Worked fine.

[drbluevert]

I had the same thing happen. I used 3M electrical tape, it takes 400 degrees, it's thin and it will stay in place. I swabbed the pipe with alcohol, wrapped the tape around the collector pipe 1/4" close to the edge and end to end without any overlap or stretching. If you need a bit more thickness you can use a length of string and place it in the center of the sticky side of the tape and apply it to the pipe as outlined above. The center hump holds up better than 2 or more wraps of tape. A little graphite powder helps to slip over without tearing the tape. Another time I used a black rubber band and that worked too.

[grumpyvette]

Re: looking for ideas to cure cosmetic issue


I made a few phone calls to friends with corvettes that have side pipe exhaust and asked, if they had similar issues and if they did have, what did they do about it and had they found a solution,I wanted to know what they use or if they even had that problem,
when I find a good answer to a problem I like to post it so everyone benefits
I never had that issue with my 1968 big block corvette that ran side pipes, but after asking around it seems to be a fairly common issue.
The result was that several people mentioned this product below as being very effective, you simply smear the inside of the side pipe and the outside of the collector with a thin coat and slide them together, theres only a couple thousands clearance and the silicone fills and seals the joint



http://www.ebay.com/itm/Xtraseal-Gas...abc7eb&vxp=mtr

[drbluevert]

Originally Posted by grumpyvette

what I,m looking for is a way to eliminate the discoloration seeping from the slip fit connection without doing something that will prevent the fairly easy removal of the side pipe for easy replacement of the insert muffler
ANY IDEAS GENTLEMEN?

RTV Silicon with Copper will have a pretty good hold (I use it often) and I thought you didn't want to go that way. Liquid solder wont stick to any plated metal and it will make a perfect seal and yet not stick the two pieces.

[D_B]

All I did was cinch the bolt tighter, but mine already fit together really tight.

[bazza]

My hooker pipes just wouldnt tighten up enough even though the bolt had pulled both sides together ..so i cut all the clamping bits off and used these instead ,

http://www.summitracing.com/parts/wlk-33274/overview/

i put a 1 inch wide strip of heat shield tape under it and some high temp rtv and it sealed up good.

comes apart real easy as well.