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Hello! Thanks for Viewing my post.
I've had ongoing problems with my Extol since I bought the old girl 9months ago.
After many bull stories made up by Mechanics and what not Ive finally worked out whats wrong.
Its the flange/joint between the Cat converter and the muffler thats really rotted and perished and its letting in oxygen to the exhaust and tripping the lamda sensors to cause the engine light to come on. This inturn is sending the mixture funny and causing a severe drop in MPG!
It looks like its been welded inbetween the flanges plates before so has probably been a long running issue. Every mechanic has said its unweldable now and will need new parts, though non have got back to me. I do know at brand new Cat alone will be about £800 and probably the rest of it will total over £1000. Not really fond of the idea of paying so much!
Have tried using special "permanent fix" tape to cover the hole, it gave me about 10minutes of issue free driving before the light came on. The only other thing ive heard of is sealant paste but apparently this doesnt last very long. I am keeping my eye out on ebay for old extols been broken down but these are rare to come by.
Does anyone have any suggestions I might have not considered? I am grateful for any and all advice and proud to be a new member of the site!
Some pictures of whats going on, hopefully these will link ok!:
Total bodge alert!!!!!I'm
Total bodge alert!!!!!
I'm not going to be proud of what I suggest, but I have done a couple of repairs to bits of exhaust systems like this, and one has now done 20k miles on a commercial vehicle and has lasted (so far) - the others lasted OK but were either scrapped or sold before known failure.
What I do is create a "multi ply composite" repair. Sounds posh hey.
Firstly, wire brush up the area to get rid of lose stuff, to allow a good bond.
Then rub this stuff:- http://www.halfords.com/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/product_storeId_10001_catalogId_10151_productId_164997_langId_-1_categoryId_255217 as deep into the flange joint as hard as possible, prod it in there with anything you can, then build up any areas to make it all as smooth as possible.
Next get a couple of packs of this:- http://www.halfords.com/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/product_storeId_10001_catalogId_10151_productId_196275_langId_-1_categoryId_255217 repair bandage stuff, you dip it in water to soften it up, then wrap it nice and neatly and tightly over the Gungum repair paste. Try and double up the layers in different directions, and make the bandage finish on a round bit of pipe. The kit comes with some stainless steel wire, wrap it around to hold it all in place and twist the wire together to tie it off with a pair of grips.
Now start the vehicle up and leave it running for 45 minutes to an hour, watching the repair cure - at tickover the exhaust pressures are lower so the repair should get chance to harden before the pressure of high revs makes it blow off.
You can see the bandage change colour as it cures - and it cures rock hard. Both the Gungun products cure with heat - unlike your alloy tape which the glue melts with heat. One of them I helped the repair cure buy suppling extra heat with an electric hot air paint stripping gun - carefully not cooking it anywhere
Good luck!
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