I just went through the replacing exhaust pipes blues.  I had to use nut
spliters, destroyed a sawsall blade, exercised the cutting torch, and only
nicked two knuckles.  I still only managed to replace the muffler, tail
pipe, "J" pipe and the rear main pipe to number 2/4 cylinders.  I found
two bolts holding the exhause to number 2 cylinder, normal nuts on number
4 cylinder, odd bolts/nuts on the J to muffler (one was a hardened bolt
(see sawsall blade above)), and two VW nuts.  I define VW nuts as the
steel nuts with "helicoil looking" brass colored threads as used in the
early aircooled bugs.

I am soliciting advice from the group concerning the replacement of all
bolts/nuts (metric 8-1.25 of various lengths) with stainless steel,
berillium, or whatever it takes to make this job less painfull in the
future. The forward number 1 and 3 cylinder pipe is still original but
there isn't enough left of the nuts to consider using a wrench, etc. to
try to remove them so I let sleeping dogs lay until I have to replace this
pipe too. I suspect that I will have to torch the nuts off, thereby
destroying the studs. Is it an OK idea to replace the cylinder studs with
stainless bolts?

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Tom Goff - 1984 full Westy - original ower, 92K miles - Highland, MD