Exhaust pipe question

[20SilkCut]

Dont laugh at my question.... but for the second time now (in a few months) i have noticed long black acrylic-like stuff?? hanging out of my exhaust pipe. I'm guessing that there may be two answers to this....

(1) the local kids are stuffing ?acrylic ?something up the exhaust pipe for a laff.....or
(2) there is some natural lagging somewhere in the exhaust system that comes out after a time???

anyone have any ideas? and if so....is it likely to be dangerous if kids have stuffed something up the exhaust?

thanks in advance for your answers...ta

[Buenchico]

It's baffle packing from the exhaust silencer.

It's quite common to see long hair-like strands like these. In the short term it's not usually a problem (although the exhaust might get progressively noisier) but anything which is blocking the exhaust pipe should be removed as soon as possible (in order to maintain maximum efficiency of the engine). In the long term, the silencer box will probably need replacing.

Chris

PS: Happy new year!

[20SilkCut]

Many thanks Chris.

Your answer has put my mind at rest that its a natural enuf phenomonon. Will keep an eye on it and ask more advice from my mechanic when i get the car checked over for MOT in a few weeks...

and Happy New Year yerself. Cheers Mate.

[Lakitu]

This is completely irrelevant to your question, but your username has just reminded me of something VERY stupid I did when I was a young underaged smoker.....

I don't remember how I acquired the silk cut cigarette, but I did, I lit it up after my parents had gone to bed (I used to strike the match as slowly as I could, so they wouldn't hear it and wake up, which is stupid considering they were in a different room!), I couldn't get a proper draw out of it, being silk cut, so I wrapped sellotape around the holes in the filter then proceeded to smoke it to the butt.

Big mistake.

Inhaling plastic fumes is NOT good.

LOL

[Toureman]

I had an interesting experience like you many years ago.

I drove 200 miles from London to Cornwall, on the way the engine started loosing power, by the time I got there it would not go over 80mph, on the way back it would not go over 70mph.

The next day it would not go over 60mph, later in the day it stopped running.

Called out recovery, they checked everything, sparks petrol etc, they eventually found out the rear silencer box was completely blocked by the fibre packing inside it, took the bonnet stay of the car and used it to pull out all the fibre, it started immediately and afterwards seem to go even quicker and with no extra noise from the exhaust.

Did replace it though.

A lot of the rear boxes don't have baffles they have a perforated tube running straight through, around it is packed the sound deadening material, when the tube corrodes and collapses the sound deadening gets pushed out of the back and sometimes piles up and completely blocks the silencer.

[20SilkCut]

Lakitu...gave u a star for the laugh you gave me...reminded me of when i used to do exactly the same thing .... lol

thanks to Chris and Toureman for their answers..i;ll keep a close eye on exhaust till i get it sorted out

new year....new bills ...i guess thats the price to pay for being a car owner...lol

[Teddio]

Talking about stuff being bunged up exhaust pipes, did you see the "Royle Family" this Christmas?

[20SilkCut]

I did indeed Teddio...wish i had taped it now. Very funny.

[goldwinggl18]

hi there the stuff you are on about is part of the exhaust and you will need to replace that part as it is the silencer falling apart and this will keep happening until you get this problem fixed i hope this helps you from john

[20SilkCut]

Cheers for your answer goldwing....will get it sorted in the next week or two...could really do with a new car to go with it...but she'll have to do another year :-)