Next I removed the exhaust from the frame. I had already detached the exhaust manifold when I removed the engine, so the only connections to the frame that remained were the exhaust hangers and the fact that the exhaust actually feeds through a hole in the crossmember of the frame. I don't know if this is the original exhaust, but I don't think it is because it is missing the distinctive "megaphone" tip. It is quite rusty, though, but that is fairly typical of an exhaust.
Here are a couple of pictures of the rear and mid-sections of the exhaust, where it runs up over the rear axle.
I began at the rear of the car, removing the nuts that held the brackets welded onto the exhaust to the frame's exhaust hangers, which had rubber blocks to make them flexible. I removed the nuts using a 13 mm socket. There were two sets of hangers, one at the very back and one just in front of that one.
Moving towards the front of the car, the exhaust then feeds through a hole in the frame's X-shaped crossmember. I removed the nut from the rear of a pair of straps of metal holding the pipe in place.
Then I used what is, in my experience, the single most useful tool for demolition work, my crowbar, to pry up the rear section of the metal strap and then the front section to expose the other nut.
I then removed the other bolt and pried up the strapping to free that section of the exhaust pipe.
Between the two pieces of the frame crossmember was a resonator that was clamped into place between the two straight pipes. I removed the clamps by loosening the nuts using the 13 mm socket.
With all the rust, however, I was unable to remove the pipes from the resonator. So I used what is, in my opinion, the second most useful tool in demolition, my reciprocating saw to cut the resonator out.
At the front, where the exhaust mounts into the manifold, there is another bracket on the frame. However, the exhaust was not connected to this bracket. This was probably to allow the engine to move a bit without tearing the exhaust free, as there was no section of flex-pipe.
With the resonator, which was clearly too wide to pull through the holes in the frame, cut out and all of the exhaust-mounting brackets disconnected from the pipes, I was able to pull the whole exhaust off the frame.
As you can see below, the existing exhaust had an
external diameter of 1 3/4". This 2-liter engine begs for more exhaust flow than that.
