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MG MGF Technical - Fitting MGF Exhaust front pipe

Hi all

The flexi pipe on the front section of my exhaust has started to blow. Ive tried patching it but it hasn't worked. I take it i'll be needing the whole new front pipe and cant simply get a new flexipipe? If it is a new front section that it needs, how easy is it to fit? I'd like to keep the overall cost down as the cars been costing me a small fortune recently, and so want to avoid the main dealer like the plague. Lastly, if i do find a good independant garage that'll do the work, how much should I be looking to fork out for the work? I cant imagine it'd be too long a job...

Many thanks

Mike
Mike

Mike

have a look on Mike Satur site. I'm sure he used to do a flexi pipe. Also look on Brown & Gammon for a flexi and price.
JohnP

I just had a new flexi pipe put on by Techspeed at its service, it looked quite a straight forward job if you can get under the car easily. I had the whole flexipie section replaced and was brand new and cost about £115 + vat. There are over sources like the MGFC who sell 2nd hand bits.

They had no problems undoing the bolts using sockets but had just spent 4 hours driving so the exhaust was hot which seemed to help.

Tom
Tom Randell

Hi Mike,
I had this done recently.
Brown & Gammons stainless steel down pipe cost &100 ,and is a work of art.

Local garage ,to me, ( CAMSKILL )fitted it for £25.

So £125 all in, and will probably last the life of the car.
HTH
Mike A.
M Atkinson

Stainless steel flexi's are not necessarily going to last the life of the car.... Corrosion is not the only reason for flexi failure, fatigue is also a major cause and stainless steel may even be more susceptible.

The advantage of the SS item is that a replament flexi portion is available for about £30+VAT (will provide the web address when I find it). Sadly the OE pipe cannot accept one of these replacement flexi portions due to the original design which has an oval one end and a circle the other... D'oh.

Tim
tim woolcott

When my flexi-pipe suffered fatigue (well rather fast fatigue, as it didn't like one of the kerbs at Brands Hatch last year) I got a 2nd hand replacement from MGFCentre for a reasonable £60 or so. Fitting it was OK, once I acquired one of those wobbly socket extensions - what on earth is the proper name? It allows you to get the socket on and exert leverage at a slight angle, rather then just at 90 degrees. Without this it would have been impossible to remove the nuts.
Dave Livingstone

Junk the standard flexi, the standard restrictive exhaust manifold and buy your self a nice new 4-2-1 exhaust manifold and flexi section!

The Darkside calls: you know it makes sense ;o)
Rob Bell

>Fitting it was OK, once I acquired one of those wobbly socket extensions

Wobble bar
Will Munns

'Universal Socket'
Geoff F.
G. Farthing

There are 3 tricky things to overcome when fitting a new flexi...

1 ) You need to jack the rear of the car up pretty high to get access to the front face of the engine - i found that it needed to be on at least the third pin hole on my axle stands (quite concerning when you are under there!)

2 ) David is spot on, without a UJ or wobble bar extension, getting to the four nuts on the flange on the manifold. It is a question of access, you need to 'bend' the ratchet extensions to get to all 4 nuts. The good news though is that these nuts do not seem to suffer much, if at all from corrosion...

3 ) The 3 nuts on the other end of the flexi pipe are part of the set of 6 on the catalyst that have the rust problem - they can be a nightmare to remove.

The other thing you will need is a new gasket for the cat end and another new gasket for the manifold end.

There are no bolts required, as the manifold flange has 4 threaded studs and the catalysts has 3 threaded studs, only nuts to undo - you may need to replace the ones on the cat end.

Good luck

SF
Scarlet Fever

Mike,

I got a cheap SS flexible exhaust section off ebay for around £45. It looked fine but when fitted it made my car sound like a VW Beetle, I hated it. I spoke to a number of garages and they all said the same that there are loads of cheap, poor quality exhausts available and there's nothing you can do other than replace it. When I tried to fit it I found the bolts connecting it to the Cat were badly corroded so I had to get a garage to fit it.

I've now taken it off and fitted a second hand section, no more Beetle noises
Darren

This thread was discussed between 30/01/2005 and 31/01/2005

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