Today's - how not to!

Today I was going to do a how to fit these and a new cat

into this

But everything that could go wrong did! :rant:

So here is a list of what to do and not to do...

1. Do not expect the heat shield nuts to come off without the heads shearing off.
2. Do not expect the manifold nuts to come off easily.
3. Do expect the studs to come out of the head with the nuts seized on. :pinch:
4. Do expect to waste 30- 45 minutes getting the nuts off the studs.
5. Do not expect that you will be able to undo the(in my case - 6) nuts holding the flexi pipe to the manifold.
6. Do expect to need foot long fingers with at least 4 joints each. :whistle:
7. Do not even dream that you will be able to undo the lumps of rust that were the nuts holding the flexi pipe to the cat.
8. Do realise that you will need to grind through the pipes either side of the cat to get it off.
10. Do realise that a 4.5" grinder disc is not wide enough to cleanly cut through the exhaust pipe.
11. Do not forget to disconnect the O2 sensor before removing the cat. :nonod:
12. Do realise that you will pull the wires out of the sensor rendering it useless. :omg:
13. Do not expect the two nuts on the removable hanger on the back box to undo.
14. Do accept that they will shear off leaving stubs that are welded to the back box.
15. Do expect to have to grind them off so that you can fit new bolts and nuts,
16. Do not expect the u-bolt nuts securing the rear finishers to undo without shearing.

All the pieces of your exhaust system will now be laying about on your drive.

17. Do not kick any of these pieces in frustration, they are heavy and you will hurt your foot.
18. Do appreciate that the O2 sensors will be tightened to 4500nm and you will need a 22mm ring spanner. to get them off And a big hammer.
19. Do you have a 22mm ring spanner? Me neither.
20. Do accept that the imperial open ended spanner that fits(more or less) will make the extraction much more difficult.

Now you are ready to put the new exhaust on.


18. Do realise that whether you put the flexi pipe on first, or the manifold on first, it's the wrong way.
19. Do remember to fit the one o2 sensor you've got left to the downpipe/flexi before assembling the manifold and flexi.
20. Do accept that refitting 6 nuts and bolts at the flexi/manifold joint is 100 times more difficult than fitting nuts to the captive bolts on the original setup.
21. Do torque the manifold nuts to 45nm and the flexi/manifold bolts to 50nm.
22. Do realise how the almost impossible task( for one person) of holding a spanner on the bolts from above while laying underneath trying to torque the nuts up will drive you mad. :rant:
23. Do appreciate that once you get it all back together and drive to the Motor factors to get a new O2 sensor and a new u-bolt clamp, that while you're thinking the worst is over, you are sadly mistaken.
24. Do understand that you cannot retro fit a post cat O2 sensor to a fitted exhaust system.
25. Do appreciate that you will have to undo all the bolts holding the cat so that you can fit the new sensor.
26. Do be careful because the exhaust is now very hot and you could easily burn yourself on it, twice.
27. Refit all the various pieces of the car you had to take off to get at the exhaust.
28. Sit back and realise you're too old for this crap! :coat:

You have my sympathy, been there myself. Ground off the nuts on both sides of the cat/rear box joint and it still wouldn't come apart - hammered the thing so much i think i've now got a decat pipe by default. :lol: ended up jumping up and down on the bloody thing to get it to move - bear in mind I'm doing all this on the road (don't have a garage).

ROFLTIPMP! :silly:

Sounds just like my Gear Cable fiasco!

On the other hand I do have #19 (2 actually) as that is the size for the TR7 water filler.

Well Done. Now off to the Pub!

so can we expect a how to then :thumbsup:

First "How not to" I have seen.

when i did my cat, it was 3.5 hrs to get just the old cat off...

10 minutes to fit new cat, bolt up, and test!

why couldnt it take 10 mins to take the old one off!!!

hope you used bolts from a cat fitting kit with the big bolts that cover the thread and stop corrosion... they are a god send.

oh and if that was this: EXHAUST MANIFOLD & DOWNPIPE FOR MGF MG TF 1.8i VVC 16V 115/118/120/135/143 00-02 Completed

interested to see what you think of it as i was considering it myself... although i will be heat wrapping mine to get engine bay temps down a bit

Oz

Ozzy wrote: oh and if that was this:

EXHAUST MANIFOLD & DOWNPIPE FOR MGF MG TF 1.8i VVC 16V 115/118/120/135/143 00-02

Completed

interested to see what you think of it as i was considering it myself... although i will be heat wrapping mine to get engine bay temps down a bit

Oz

Yeah it was that kit. :broon: Impressions, a nice bit of kit with neat welds and worked internally for smoother gas flow. As I mentioned the only difficulty(:rofl:) was tightening the 6 bolts/nuts on the manifold/flexi joint. Assistant required really.

The flexi joint does sit tighter to the sump than the OE too, but I don't think this will cause a problem.

In use the sound is better, but I did have a rattly cat and a broken flexi.:lol:

And, oh yes, I did use catsaver type SS fittings, so exhaust is stainless from the head to the tips of the finishers now! :yesnod:

Ozzy wrote: oh and if that was this:

EXHAUST MANIFOLD & DOWNPIPE FOR MGF MG TF 1.8i VVC 16V 115/118/120/135/143 00-02

Completed

interested to see what you think of it as i was considering it myself... although i will be heat wrapping mine to get engine bay temps down a bit

Oz

You may want to consider some kind of thermal gasket then as the heat build up could feed back into the head as the headers will run hotter.

I have the Toyo stainless manifold and flexi kit (4 bolt) fitted to my 1996 VVC. I like it a lot and agree the gas flow is much better as the welds are outside and very neat they are too. The cat and back box remain standard until I can decide what to change them to. It seemed that the engine bay was hotter with the stainless kit fitted, however, I hadn't got the back box heat shield board in place - heat was normal once that was fitted..

Here's my contribution to "how not to"
It's a whole lot easier to get the right O2/Lambda in the first place.
There are two types of O2 sensor. They have the same threads and I believe there's no difference in their sensing. They do have different loom connectors. Early cars have just one sensor in the manifold tree(pre cat) - it has a narrow nose into the manifold. Later cars use two identical sensors that have a wider nose - one fits into the manifold and the other to the exhaust pipe after the cat. I mistakenly bought a wide nose pre/post-cat type and had to machine a couple of mm out of the manifold in the O2 boss to get it to fit. Then had to mess with the wiring connector to loom. The upside is that with the boss widened out, I can fit either type of sensor.


Jeff

xad3888 wrote: I have the Toyo stainless manifold and flexi kit (4 bolt) fitted to my 1996 VVC. I like it a lot and agree the gas flow is much better as the welds are outside and very neat they are too. The cat and back box remain standard until I can decide what to change them to. It seemed that the engine bay was hotter with the stainless kit fitted, however, I hadn't got the back box heat shield board in place - heat was normal once that was fitted..

Here's my contribution to "how not to"
It's a whole lot easier to get the right O2/Lambda in the first place.
There are two types of O2 sensor. They have the same threads and I believe there's no difference in their sensing. They do have different loom connectors. Early cars have just one sensor in the manifold tree(pre cat) - it has a narrow nose into the manifold. Later cars use two identical sensors that have a wider nose - one fits into the manifold and the other to the exhaust pipe after the cat. I mistakenly bought a wide nose pre/post-cat type and had to machine a couple of mm out of the manifold in the O2 boss to get it to fit. Then had to mess with the wiring connector to loom. The upside is that with the boss widened out, I can fit either type of sensor.


Jeff

It's worse than that because the earlier sensor is about half the price of the newer ones. :rant:

WELCOME TO OUR WORLD,EXHAUST ONLY COME OFF IN ONE WAY.BLOW TORCH.AND IF YOU ARE CAREFUL YOU CAN SAFE THE EXHAUST.MANIFOLD STUDS ALWAYS COME OFF LIKE THAT.MIND YOU ALL CAR EXHAUSTS ARE THE SAME NOT JUST MGF.WE HATE EXHAUST REALLY HATE THEM.THE CHROME ONES LOOK NICE,NEED TO POLISH THEM EVERY DAY.HEAT SHIELD JUST DRILL OUT BOLTS AND THEN PUT LARGER SCREWS WITH THE BOLT HEAD IN.NEVER BE TEMPTED TO LEAVE IT OFF,IT DOES HAVE A JOB TO DO,THE ONE UNDER THE BOOT IS JUST AS MUCH FUN.
NICE TO SEE DAVID YOU ENJOYED YOURSELF.OFTEN THE MANIFOLD BREAKS WHEN YOU TAKE THE FLEXI PIPE OFF.THE EXHAUST HOLDING BRACKETS ARE ALSO A JOY.STAINLESS WITH STAINLESS BOLTS WITH COPPER GREASE.HEAVEN

IF WE GET A REALLY SUBBON CAR WE TAKE IT OUT SIDE,SHOW IT SOME PETROL,AND A MATCH AND JUST SAY SCRAP YARD,WE THEN WHEEL IT BACK AND IT WORKS EVERY TIME.YOU JUST HAVE TO SHOW THEN WHO IS BOSS.
ANY WAY IM WORKING ALL NIGHT TO GET A SICK 160 ENGINE REBUILT