I made a crush gasket out of a couple of beer cans. take some straight snips and cut some lengths of the can the same width as depth of your connection. I pushed a few of strips into the space between the header and muffler after I had started the clamp. using the play in the muffler you can works some strips in the gap and then its the crush effect of the clamp. I found the automotive exhaust clamps worked well. electric drill and a deep socket made easy work of the seal. be sure to alternate from bolts. hope that helps.

john1652 wrote on 12/31/69 at 16:00:12:



Yup, I did finally just have my neighbor TIG weld it for me. I could have just borrowed one of his MIG machines and done an adequate job, but the TIG weld is very pretty. If I didn't already have such a nice heat shield to cover it, the weld was pretty enough to leave exposed!

Oh... no it doesn't leak a bit. Yes if I want to change mufflers I'll have to buy another header pipe, or use the cutting wheel on my die grinder to cut the current muffler off at the weld; then smooth the area down. Now that I've done it this way, I doubt I'll bother fighting with any other method again.

Tips: Get the muffler you want; Get it positioned exactly where you want it; clamp it together TIGHT with a heavy duty u-bolt clamp so it CAN'T move!!! Remove the header pipe/muffler and take the whole assembly to the weld bench. CAUTION: Be careful not to let the welder's ground arc from the table to any surface that shows when mounted on the bike... We mounted the whole pipe/muffler in a vice via the muffler's mounting bracket, and that grounded it through his welding table. If you just roll it around on a table while welding on it, you'll end up with nasty grounding arcs all over your nice new muffler.