Club 80-90 Forums

My Steel exhaust been on for quite a few years. It's not falling apart but there has been some numerous repairs made in past. I know the cure to this question is go full Stainless Steel option. However, I had to do some outlay on the house & usual bills. I can't go to the £700/750 or so currently for the stainless, so I would like to try and squeeze another year if possible / 2 MOT's out of it.

The MOT coming up in a few weeks, so I'll have to try and work with what I have. It will be the usual crawl underneath and patch any holes with Holts Gum Gum. Though is there any paint or something like Hammerite Kurust could be applied, I'm doubtful as going on a hot surface?

Any advice?

VHT (very high temperature) paint rated for 600 degrees will hold but not too well on rust

As it goes, I snapped up a few cans of stove paint from LIDL earlier in the year.

Cheers oh yeah stove paint probably would work.
I'll have to get underneath it at the weekend and see what/if any damage. This time last year I patched it up with Holt Gum Gum, IE the join where the pipes meet the silencer and another bit in the bottom tube (usual places) and it got through MOT ok, though you can only do that so many times!
Ideally what I am thinking is get the wire brush out remove the loose surface rust, brush on some Krust or alike (when cold) wait 24 hours, let it settle then apply some paint to buy me time!

If you are ever in my neck of the woods then you can have my old pipes, some life left in them, just taking up space at the mo. PM me

NicBeeee wrote:If you are ever in my neck of the woods then you can have my old pipes, some life left in them, just taking up space at the mo. PM me

OK thanks, I'll let you know. I am having trouble PM-ing at the moment for some reason.
I haven't had a chance to get underneath mine recently (put my back out last week), to see how the repair of mine of last year has held out!

No problem, I will keep them for you until otherwise, still haven't got your pm

If anyone is interested:
I have just refurbished my exhaust system on my 2.1 wWBX while I had the engine out to do some odd jobs.
The main source of leaks has always been where the front and rear pipes from the heads join the cast iron two into one collector. Looking at the illustrations in Bentleys and the bundle pack on Just Kamper: Exhaust Bundle Kit VW T25 2100cc Water cooled 1985-1992 I determined that I was missing the mid front pipe to sump support and the strap which somewhat hopefully supports the cast iron collector from a tab on the exhaust flange. I assume that the design intent was for these parts to prevent the whole system from shaking itself loose. Upon removing the exhaust I discovered that the flanges on the collector end of the pipes from the heads have been eroded by leaking exhaust and rust so that a permanent seal could not realistically be made without building up with weld etc.

I would have gone for a full stainless but the system of my choice would be obstructed by my aftermarket oil cooler adapter sandwiched under the oil filter.
So as the rear pipe and silencer is sound I went for new front and rear pipes from JK (apparently getting some money off for Club 80-90 membership).
I had noticed that the old pair required springing into alignment at the collector and sure enough the new pair requires to be pulled into alignment too. Rather than go along with this I machined up a shim gasket so that there would be no tension in the system as the fixings were tightened up. Time will tell.
I did find it very satisfying to set up the front and rear pipes plus connector on the bench rather than under the van but would not consider taking the engine out unless there was other work to be done. I have sprayed the exhaust with matt black high temp paint but realistically don't expect it to last out a winter.