LCGB Forums

My Vega exhaust is badly rusted from the inside out. I know it'll need some fabrication and welding to make it serviceable again.

Has anyone any experience of cutting one open ie best place to cut etc?

Just cut open a remade one as the internal baffle tube had broken off and kept blocking the gas flow as well as rattling . They're not easy to do as the internals are welded to the outer skin. If you have the old performance and tuning book there's a cut away diagram showing the internals.

Thanks for that. Yes, I have seen the cut away drawing. It looks a challenge and a half

I'm really surprised no one has had these remade.

Easily £200+ for an old one on fleabay, and few can be in decent condition nowadays.

The one I've had a few years is a remade one and I sold a NOS one to Rimini

I believe Scootopia did get some remade a while back.

In my case, I am going to cut it open and take it from there. I may find it's irreparable and that it's not cost effective to get it all patched up and rebuilt inside.

I'll put up some pics when I have been brave enough to cut it

Well I finally got round to cutting it open. There are four plates inside.

The one nearest the manifold holds the trumpet (that's the bit in the middle that you can see in the main picture). In my case, I can see that this is in far from perfect condition but the trumpet is at least being held centrally.

The next plate holds, I'm not sure how to describe this (it's not in the pictures), a sort of muffler, a pipe of about 4" long, 1" diameter, which is crimped at one end (furthest away from the manifold) and has holes drilled in the side.

There are then 2 further plates towards the end. These have 2 pipes in which are offset against each other.

Plans: it's in poor condition so I don't intend spending loads of cash on it. But, I do intend trying to resurrect it. I need to get a plate made to hold the muffler and get that welded back in. I'm thinking of just getting one of the back 2 plates fabricated and welded back in.

I'm sure this will make it noisier and will effect performance in some way.

Well a year later after begging the question, I got the exhaust back today.





How it'll perform will be anyone's guess but, in the absence of any new exhausts on the market, it's worth a go and only cost a few quid.

Clearly, it's not worthy of getting re-chromed. Any thoughts on how nickel or zinc plate would last?

Zinc won't last 5 minutes. As soon as it gets hot it oxidises and burns off.

The fumes are poisonous too, but I'm not sure whether or not they'll kill you; if you try it and don't report back I'll assume they're very bad.

Nickel is being used increasingly on mx exhausts. I don't know if electroless or electro plating is better but electroless gets the inside plated too.

Thanks for that. I'll make some enquiries locally about nickel plating when I get round to it