My car has a tail............

[andydingdang]

My car has been underpowered recently and guzzles petrol. The exhaust pipe is jammed with what looks like horse hair, i have been told this is the fibre glass from the muffler!?!? does anyone know if this is the case and can i just by a new back box for my exhaust and fit myself.

[Toureman]

I had exactly this problem many years ago with a 3 ltr Granada!

I did a 250 mile trip and the car would only go at around 90 mph, On the return trip it would only go at 85mph. I had to do the same trip 2 days later the car would only do 80 mph and on the return about 70mph. I had a short trip to do the next day and the car finally just ground to a halt and refused to start!

I called out recovery, the car was a military staff car, an RAF recovery crew checked everything out including stripping and re-building the Carb but could find nothing wrong,

Whilst they were trying to start the car I was stood at the rear and realised that there was no sound at all coming out of the exhaust, we then realised the exhaust was blocked, we took the bonnet stay off the car and poked it up the exhaust to clear the rear box, after we did this the car worked perfectly, I gave it a good rev up and all the fibreglass packing flew out! The rear box was never renewed and because of less back pressure I am sure the car ran better and it was hardly any noisier.

So, sorry about the long story........Give it a try, it will save you spending!

[andydingdang]

Thanks Toureman, this is brilliant I will take your advice

[bigdaddycain]

You will need a new backbox though,the glassfibre is the baffle,which is sandwiched between the inner and outer layer of the silencer,the fact that this material is poking from the tailpipe indicates that the inner layer has corroded to such an extent that the baffle is literally hanging out!..A temporary fix(pulling out offending baffle) would do the trick,but ultimately the backbox would need to be replaced.Get the fitter to check the rest of the exhaust while he,s at it,cos thats probably not far behind with the corrosion.

[Toureman]

Exhaust that have fibre packing in do not have Baffles,

There is a perforated pipe which runs straight through the silencer with the sound absobent packing around it, this makes the exhaust gases quieter.

If part of the perforated pipe corrodes this allows some of the packing to block the silencer.

If the car drives ok and is not noisy why get a new one fitted?

If it ain't broke don't fix it!