Cost to weld exhaust?

Calum

Calum

Hey everyone,

The centre section of my exhaust came apart today (the weld broke). The car has had the middle cat removed and the piece of pipe which replaced it has broken away from the chamber which comes after the cat.

Does anyone have any idea what a reasonable price to pay for welding it back together (if indeed possible) should cost? I've never had anything welded before so I don't even have a ballpark figure to go on..

Any help would be much appreciated :)

On the plus side the car sounds like a beast! :p
 
I think a quick welding job on the car would be £20ish if it can be got at easily. Try calling in at the nearest independant garage and ask.
 
^Eek! Really? My mate was selling himself short for years. I trust your opinion though Noddie, sorry if I mislead anyone. If Calum's anywhere near the Bexleyheath end of London, I could do it for him. Gratis, obviously.
 
r-reg-sr said:
under waranty?
Click to expand...

Unfortunately not, it was done by the previous owner, instead of using a bolt-in pipe as a replacement for the cat a single piece of exhaust tubing was welded into place.

Noddie said:
I would expect nothing less than 50. If you remove it, clean up any rust and hand it to them then maybe 20 :)
Click to expand...

Thanks for the advice Noddie. At least I have a rough idea of what I should expect to pay now.

Wagoneer said:
^Eek! Really? My mate was selling himself short for years. I trust your opinion though Noddie, sorry if I mislead anyone. If Calum's anywhere near the Bexleyheath end of London, I could do it for him. Gratis, obviously.
Click to expand...

Thanks for the generous offer and advice Wagoneer :) I would have loved to taken you up on it but unfortunately I am all the way in Swansea at Uni at the moment so its a bit far :(


I seem to have three choices now:

1. Pay for someone to weld a new cat replacement pipe into place. IMO this is a weak setup as a lot of stress is placed on the middle section of the exhaust as it is not supported very well and places stress on the welds.

2. Buy my own welder and exhaust piping and attempt it myself. This is my least favourite option as I lack any welding experience; although I have seen a lot of peoples work on here and thought it could be possible to learn. Need to do a bit more research before attempting this.

3. Buy a new front downpipe, a new centre pipe, and attempt to source a replacement bolt in second decat pipe. I remember seeing one of these a while ago and it didn't seem to expensive. I just have no idea where I saw it. Unless someone on here could knock together a pipe of the same length with same flanges from the cat (for a fee of course) this option could be troublesome. I need the new downpipe and centre pipe because the flanges are missing to bolt in a cat.

Minus the cost of the cat replacement pipe option 3 seems the most viable; as the downpipe and centre pipe should not cost more than £45 inc. postage (off ebay). If anyone who knows how to weld would be willing to knock up a cat replacement pipe for me it would be awesome (just give me a quote). This option is probably better than the others because I would end up with a mostly new exhaust system.

I would like to learn how to weld as it seems like an invaluable skill; Masters studies and the lack of space at them moment to carry out any real work make it impractical at the moment however.

Any further help or advice would be greatly appreciated :)
 
frank said:
fitting a coilpack middle pipe is 1 option calum, they are longer as there is no 2nd cat :)
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Thanks Frank! I was literally about to ask if there was ever a Micra built that did not have a secondary cat :) Would it be a direct replacement between a non-coilpack downpipe and back box?

Also does any one know what the chamber is for that sits directly behind where the second cat should be?
 
the flanges bolt together ok mate, you might need 2 gaskets or extra gungum tho (depending on brand of pipe)
and some makes include an extra silencer after the 2nd cat :)
 
frank said:
the flanges bolt together ok mate, you might need 2 gaskets or extra gungum tho (depending on brand of pipe)
and some makes include an extra silencer after the 2nd cat :)
Click to expand...

Thanks for that :) I am trying to source a pipe without the extra silencer at the moment, but it's hard to tell if the pipe is designed for a non-coilpack or coilpack version; I am guessing K11C (1997-2003) is the coilpack version right?

While I have got the exhaust off I was planning on knocking the primary cat through to try and obtain a more free-flowing setup without going down the aftermarket route. Do you reckon it's worth it?
 
be careful with ebay listings mate, coilpack are 2000 - 2003
and i doubt if you will gain a lot from gutting the 1st cat (the peashooter downpipe is probably far more restrictive than the cat)
 
frank said:
be careful with ebay listings mate, coilpack are 2000 - 2003
and i doubt if you will gain a lot from gutting the 1st cat (the peashooter downpipe is probably far more restrictive than the cat)
Click to expand...

So did the coilpack only come in a 1.4, or was there a 1.3 option as well? Sorry for all of the questions :p
 
Well the difference in lengths for the middle pipe is

K11 (non coilpack): 1310mm
K11 (coilpack): 1630mm

Now I just need to try and find one which does not have a silencer built in. This is proving difficult :(
 
One thing I would say, If you do want to gut the first cat, it may be worth asking around to see if someone has one already done, that way you can keep yours for MOT. I gutted mine then regretted it at MOT time when a replacement was silly money :)
 
Noddie said:
One thing I would say, If you do want to gut the first cat, it may be worth asking around to see if someone has one already done, that way you can keep yours for MOT. I gutted mine then regretted it at MOT time when a replacement was silly money :)
Click to expand...

Thanks Noddie :) I already checked this out; it's funny how a lot of the used cats on ebay are still attached to the manifold. Is it hard to separate the two? I've got a few Micra related things I need gone which I need to put up in the for sale thread, so I'll probably stick a wanted ad up for a spare cat while I am at it.

I'm gonna attempt to repair the exhaust today with some exhaust tape as a temporary solution. I am sure people look at my car and assume because of the way it looks that I have deliberately fitted a super loud exhaust. If it was any other car they would just presume it was broken :p.
 
Got the exhaust fixed today, not even blowing a little bit :)

1962756_10153786211485262_245590008_n.jpg


Exhaust before:

1507174_10153786211610262_1328622588_n.jpg


Exhaust after some heat resistant metal tape and a tin of chopped tomatoes:

1780742_10153786211705262_1551525985_n.jpg


Let's see how it holds up against the Swansea weather :p
 
MicraPRO said:
That is brilliant! And I thought I was good at bodging!
Click to expand...

It didn't last long, drove two minutes into uni tonight and the rear part of the fix started to blow again :( I don't think I taped far enough back from the break to hold the pressure in.

Solution: More tape and jubilee clips :D
 
frank said:
that middle pipe looks older than god calum ! just bin it and fit a new one
Click to expand...
Haha, couldn't have put it better myself.
I'm hopefully going to be able to replace the entire system. The downpipe and middle pipe are relatively inexpensive but I will wait until I have sourced one of your(?) Frankspeed manifolds and a hollow first cat before I buy anything else (Skymera will hopefully be able to sell me the mani and cat).
I was hoping to find / build a bolt in replacement pipe for the second cat rather than weld a pipe in place of it like was done before.

Hopefully I will be able to retain the stock backbox as it has a rather nice exhaust tip welded to it; it's a nice size and sits in just the right place. Not sure if it is seized to the middle pipe though..

Coupled with a GA16 air box it should hopefully give a little more poke. Don't want to spend to much on it as it is at the moment though as it will only detract from my 'project fund' :rolleyes:
 

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