What a day!!

I'll keep it brief.

8 hours messing around with rusty bolts, and those terrible 'C' clips on the exhaust to try and cure the exhaust blow I've been getting at the front. All back together finally with new gasgets and new seal on the swivel joint. Start engine, and it's now blowing MUCH worse than it was!    

Took it all apart again, and discovered one of the brand new exhaust gasgets had blown, must have not tightened it down enough. Another lesson learnt the hard way!       :evil:

Now need to obtain new one(s) tomorrow from somewhere! Anyone got any sugestions where I might get that sort of part on a sunday??? Anyone in the Kent area just happen to have a spare set in their garage?? Really need the car back together for Monday!

Cheers,

Mike.

Sorry too late for a response but any local motor factor should have some. If you havent already, you might want to get new sealing ring and C clips too as they stretch and cause blowing at the joint…

i have 4 exhaust manifold/head gaskets. don't know if it's too late. i'm in erith. may be able to meet if you're not too far.

Little bit late now, thanks for the offer thou. I've emergency booked tomorrow off work to fix the car, as I couldn't find any places open today with the correct part in stock.

Blimy, those 'C' clips do stretch a lot, Never realised that! How the devil to you get them on when they're that small, I had enough trouble getting the old ones back on.  I got a new sealing ring for that join, as it was that that was blowing in the first place.

Cheers,

Mike.

I used the old trick of using thick bits of metal in wedge shapes to splay the clips apart then once in position I removed the wedge. I have the proper tool now but havent used it yet…
http://www.toolbay.biz/searcher.asp?search=exhaust

The problem I had was it was blowing under acceleration. I fitted a new ring but didnt change the clips. It still blew so then I changed the clips.

that's exactly what my exhast was doing, and I'm loosing loads of power and lots of fuel to it!
I couldn't get the clips far enough apart with wedges to get them on, so I had to forcefully bend them apart, then once on the join, use two pairs of mole grips to bend them back so they gripped the joint. Obviously this has weakened them a lot.  Might see if I can get the proper tool somewhere tomorrow

Cheers,

Mike.

Good luck with it :wink:

You might have a problem finding the tool locally :dontknow: If you do find one I doubt it will be as cheap as from toolbay. The one from toolbay is laser, halfords stock laser tools but my local has never had one, maybe they can order one?

I guess if you can get it together enough to drive it for now, it will give you time to source the tool and clips for doing the work next weekend or one evening.