Exhaust in diesels

Hi
I'm new to this forum, but I just bought my first MK1 Golf Diesel, its a 1.5 and needs a little bit of work to be perfect. One problem is that the muffler on the exaust has something in it that makes an obnoxious rattle. I was wondering if I could cut out the muffler and run a straight pipe…. or do diesels need alot of back pressure to run smoothly. Please let me know what you think. Thanks

You won't gain anything with a straight-through exhaust system, except a bit more noise. And it won't be a nice noise, it will be a chugging similar to a medium-sized tractor. So I'd recommend replacing the back box with a new one.

Performance exhaust system is one of the areas you could address when tuning a diesel for more power, but unless you did a whole bunch of other stuff, its really not worth it.

i just want to stop the rattling, could you send me in the right direction for some parts?

Yellow pages, or drive around your local area on main roads looking for an exhaust/fast fit centre. Its not worth the hassle of buying something as bulky as an exhaust mail order, then trying to fit it yourself, when the fast fit places can get good prices and do "free" fitting anyway. An old exhaust system is probably seized on, might need to be cut off, will need mounting correctly (and on the Mk1 Golf the way the centre section is offset, means it needs supporting carefully while the clamps are tightened, otherwise it droops down; and also the clearance between the body and the rear axle is not that large). I've done them before but you need to get the car really high into the air to be able to 'feed' the exhuast around obstacles and into the right place, and its 10x more difficult without a 4 poster. Almost all fast fit centres will still stock or be able to get hold of an exhaust for an older car like the Mk1 Golf, exhausts are not complicated items and there is a good distribution chain!