Dennis,

I was mistaken about that bolt size. It was more like maybe a M10. I
matched it to the label on the bolt drawer. I either misread it or the
draw was mislabeled.  All the rest were M8.

I thought about running the thing through a muffler shop - glad I
didn't. It would have eaten my lunch. This job should have taken only an
hour - maybe hour and a half. But with the fits and starts - it's gotten
spread over four days.

BTW - it took me all day Monday to finally locate an M8 tap so I could
clean up threads. One would have thought that in city as big as
Birmingham, AL an M8 tap would have been more readily available. I
finally found one - but only because I stumbled across it late in the
day. Every place I went wanted to order it in, with a three day wait!

John

On 8/12/2013 11:39 PM, Dennis Haynes wrote:
> M15 is a really big bolt. Getting that 22mm wrench must have been fun! Maybe
> you mean you needed a 15mm wrench. That would probably be an M10 ISO or JASO
> bolts. Many of the cheap Cats and some mufflers will take the 10mm hardware.
> The Vanagon muffler should have tapped holes on the tailpipe side. As for
> the muffler bracket holes a tap set seems to be a must have for VW work.
>
> Just think when a shop has a simple job go south like this. Imagine if you
> had to pay $100/hour to get that muffler in there.
>
> Dennis
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Vanagon Mailing List [mailto:vanagon@gerry.vanagon.com] On Behalf Of
> JRodgers
> Sent: Monday, August 12, 2013 10:33 AM
> To: vanagon@GERRY.VANAGON.COM
> Subject: '88 GL Muffler Change - a big PITB!!!
>
> Muffle has been noisy and rattling for a while., finally broke down and
> bought a new one. Ordered new muffler, gaskets and hardware. Upon opening
> the package discovered the muffler was different on the tail pipe end than
> the old muffler. This was the beginning of a series of problems, however
> minor, in this case. The flange was threaded rather than being drilled
> through to accept bolts through it with nuts on the other end. This
> difference resulted in the new bolts being to long. No real problem, just a
> time killer while I hunted down new, shorter bolts.
>
> All the bolts on the cat and muffler were rusted beyond recovery, and a real
> pain to get loose. Soaked them with PB Blaster for three days, giving them
> all a little squirt three times a day. Third day I began to disassemble
> them. With a bit of grunt and strain with the help of a breaker bar the
> bolts either broke or otherwise came loose. I found the flange and pipe on
> the CAT end of the muffler  to have come completely loose from the muffler
> and was just floating free. The only thing holding it was the fact it was
> still bolted to the CAT flange. I loosened the muffler hanger straps and
> slide the muffler to one side, separating the muffler and the CAT. The CAT
> easily came free at that point. Next was the muffler itself.
>
> After a discussion on The List with Dennis Haynes and others - I set about
> to remove the right hand muffler hanger. What a PITA. Couldn't do it with
> what I had. The exhaust cross-over pipe blocked access to the nuts and bolts
> with straight wrenches. So - stop once again and go buy a couple of
> universals so I could get to the nuts and bolts at an angle and still turn
> them. When finally done, I removed the hangar and the muffler slid right
> out.
>
> With the muffler out, the tailpipe bolts were removed, freeing the tailpipe
> to be swapped over to the new muffler. Next came separating the broken
> muffler flange from the CAT. At this point I discovered that the bolts hold
> the Cat to the muffler flange were much bigger  than the rest. All the other
> bolts were either M8X30 or M8X35. These puppies were M15X30. Why the much
> larger bolt I don't understand - but the holes in both the CAT and the new
> muffler matched in size. But this meant that my hardware set didn't match so
> off again to the hardware store. So I wound up with three M8X30(CAT to
> J-pipe), three M15X30(CAT to muffler), three M8X20(muffler to tailpipe)and
> two M8X20(muffler straps)
>
> Readied to re-install the muffler hangar and decided to check the bolt fit
> in the muffler hangers. The bolts would not enter straight. Rather than try
> to force them in - and maybe create a cross thread situation, I stopped once
> again to hunt down a thread chaser. My straps were good and reuseable, but
> the nut on the hanger  to receive strap bolt  is welded in place. Screw that
> nut up, and it's buy a new hanger - which is not available locally and would
> have to be ordered in. But, as luck would have it - the discovery of the
> hanger nut problem was discovered late Saturday night and on Sunday no
> suitable tool store was open - so I was forced into the traditional day of
> rest on Sunday. Perhaps that was as it should be. I sure feel good this
> Monday morning.
>
> I started this project in the morning Friday last, and expected to have the
> van on the road in the afternoon for a fishing trip. WRONG!! Murphy came to
> visit and he's been here helping every step of the way. It's Monday morning,
> and  as I write, the job is not yet complete, but the cat, muffler and
> tailpipe with new gaskets and hard ware are assembled, thus  everything is
> ready to be re-assembled to the vehicle. So here goes. Wish me well!
>
> John
>