After reading about my pipe with the foreign object predicament, Chris on SouthWestRides contacted me offering help!

We met up yesterday, a lovely Thursday afternoon, and got to work.

Of course, no garage is complete without a shop dog. 🙂

The caps were spot welded on, so after a few minutes with a dremel, the caps came off.

It took a little muscle to pull the baffles out, and then we discovered the old, oily packing.
Good thing I decided to re-pack the things!

Mmmm, fiberglass….

The tube wouldn’t pull out, and we realized that the rivets from the plates were causing the hang-up.

So, time to de-rivet.

The offending object was still stuck inside the baffle, but after a little prodding, it fell out.

What the hell? It looks like a solid chunk of tar.

De-riveted badges (and now in my purse for safe keeping. Heh)

The second pipe proved to be a little difficult as well. The baffle was being stubborn and we found a dent in the side that was keeping it from pulling out.

It was time to break out the drill and welder.

Chris put a hole in the pipe, and we were able to take the second pipe apart

More dirty, dirty packing material. Eww.

then he cut a small piece of metal to weld back to cover the hole.

and welded it on. Sweet!

We repacked the tubes (yes, I took the “holding tape” off first. [:)] )

Chris didn’t have any rivets to reinstall the badges, so I borrowed his rivet gun so I can finish that this weekend.

And of course, I have no pic of the final. Suffice to say, they look pretty much like they did in the first pic. Except now with no weird blockage and with shiny new packing material.

😀