What we are saying is that the cat or the muffler or BOTH might have loose parts inside. Sometimes the parts and ceramics from the cat could actually be inside the muffler. In other words, check your cat also.

That the reason why I wanted you to see if you can use a leaf blower. At least you can attempt to emulate an engine exhaust and see if your mufflers are actually bad.

Noises, like electrical, are always a pain.

 

Folks,

I finally decided to take apart all the mufflers during the Christmas break. After all, a break is made for that: tinkering with your car.

The car was installed on ramps for easier access: (by the way, you need to remove the rear bumper to gain access to the mufflers. Not doing it would be foolish and extremely difficult).



The noise was coming from the left side:



After careful examination of the muffler, I found a broken link between the exhaust tubes. Apparently, this is a common problem:



The entire muffler was taken to a muffler shop (Henry's Muffler in Raleigh, NC):



They opened the beast as shown on that picture and revealed all kinds of broken baffles (The following picture was borrowed):



Unfortunately, Henry's crew did not take any inside picture but they did a beautiful job at mending the muffler back:



Very nice welding job. They also re-enforced a few weak areas.



The overall cost was $150 (2 hours labor) as compared to $1295 for a new muffler. Early tests indicated a very good improvement on the noise. The muffler is now completely silent and devoid of metallic noises.

I have not been able to drive the car for a long time yet, because of the awful weather we have had on the East Coast (low temperature and massive rains).

I hope that little presentation may help you or convince you to fix your rattling mufflers.

Yves

 

Cudos. Even if it hadn't worked, I'm glad to see someone trying to actually FIX something. It seems like nobody wants to even try anymore, as long as there are new parts available for replacement. Was it tough to get your muffler shop to open it up?

 

No, it was not difficult at all. Apparently, they had done that before for another Porsche enthusiast. And if it did not work, I could always go to the local dealer and pull out my credit card.

You are right about trying to fix things. Here in the western world, we take everything for granted and always go for the expensive options.
When I was in Morocco, I had a BMW 2002 and had one day a starter problem: the Bendix/pusher fork had broken inside the starter, causing the gear to be constantly geared to the motor: very noisy and fatal to the starter.

I took my car to a local mechanic shop. The guys were honored to work on a BMW (it was a nice change from their Peugeot, Mercedes and other Renault). They removed the starter from the car, opened the starter, took it apart, welded the broken fork, put it back together and re-installed it into the car. Those guys are wizards, champions of the tinkering and rescue missions.

It cost me in 1982 less than a dollar for the complete operation!!!! Needless to say, I gave the mechanic much more than that and got all kinds of blessings..... His repair lasted many years after my return in Europe and the starter never failed again.


Yves

 

Ive removed and installed my mufflers at least 4 times. Never had to remove the bumper. It's actually very easy... Takes 10 minutes per sides

 

Ditto Budda... Ive had my cans off my car a few times as well... No bumper pull needed... and yes, minimal time per side. (30 minutes/both)

 

It can be done, but it is so much more complicated. Plus, I do not want to touch the bolts to the engine head or remove the catalytic converter.

Perhaps you guys, could write a DIY on how you do that. That would be a welcome addition.

Thanks
Yves

 

You don't need to touch any of the headers or cat pipe elements to remove the mufflers

I remember following someone else's DIY so they already exist. Gist of it would be

1. jack the car (removing the rear wheels helps but isn't necessary)
2. Remove muffler tips (13 mm socket I believe)
3. Loosen the clamp holding the cat and muffler together
4. Remove rear bumper brackets (the long thin bracket behind the rear wheels holding the bumper to the frame)
5. Remove the three muffler bolt holding the muffler bracket to the frame (forgot the size)
6. Wiggle the muffler out (having the rear wheels off makes it really easy)

When re installing, if you invert the two bolts holding the muffler to the muffler bracket, then it makes future removal even easier because you can just remove the mufflers while leaving the bracket on the car.

That's it - takes 30 minutes for both side including removing wheels

 

Good memory Buddah. sounds right on the money to me. I think the exhaust system is incredibly easy to pull on this car all the way up to the headers even. im pulling mine out and sending them out to swaintech to have an anti-heat coating applied to greatly reduce engine bay temps.

 

Finally, the weather is cooperating and temperature went above ice melting point in NC. I could enjoy my 997 this morning and the exhaust sounds wonderfully silent. So silent, that I had to turn on the Sport mode to get some kind of tonal feedback.

Henry's Mufflers in Raleigh did a good job.

Yves