[T3] Best Practices for Muffler Preservation

Keith Park topnotch at nycap.rr.com
Mon Jul 6 18:48:26 PDT 2015


The muffler and heaterboxes on the crate were sandblasted and coated with
the Eastwood exhaust paint, the zinc stuff.  At the time it was the best
thing I could find, but since then Ive switched to Bill Hirsh exhaust and
manifold paint, the THunderbird folks use it, I havent alot of experience
yet but its been on the Birds manifolds for the past couple years and still
looks perfect.

The ceramic coat is a glorified powdercoating and even on virgin metal Ive
found it to be a complete waste of money, still rusts even when rarely in
the rain.

The early OEM mufflers were pretty thick and lasted a long time, I will
braze up pinholes rather easily, I remember brazing up the lower muffler
inputs on that muffler.

One of the crate's heater boxes is NOS, the other original that I re-did if
I recall right, its in the literature.  If I were to pull them off again, Id
do a quick blasting to remove the eastwood paint and use the Bill Hirsh.

Keith


-----Original Message-----
From: type3-vwtype3.org [mailto:type3-vwtype3.org-bounces at lists.vwtype3.org]
On Behalf Of Sean Bartnik
Sent: Monday, July 06, 2015 3:58 PM
To: type3 at vwtype3.org
Subject: [T3] Best Practices for Muffler Preservation

Hello all,
I've been out of town so not much time spent with the Eggcrate lately. Now
I'm back and looking at upcoming work...

I think I mentioned earlier that I've got a little pinhole exhaust leak at
the muffler on the left side at the seam where the lower pipe enters the
main muffler chamber. I tried a quick fix with some muffler putty but that
hasn't really accomplished anything (unless I have more than one leak and
haven't discovered the other one yet). 

I'm considering removing the muffler again and having it welded up properly
but if I do that, then I also want to do something to preserve it properly
for regular use. 

The muffler is currently in good shape, not rusty but it has only the
factory coating on it which I know isn't going to last long in real use. 

I just want to get some feedback from the experts here as to what is the
best way to go for long-term preservation. The options I'm aware of so far
are: 

1) Prep & very-high-temp paint 
2) Prep & ceramic coat 
3) Prep & very-high-temp powdercoat (if such a thing exists) 

I'm also thinking that whatever I do to the muffler I should probably do to
the heat exchangers at the same time. Any thoughts on the best route to take
here? 

Thanks,
-Sean

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