Exaust leak?

Can anyone describe to me a common scenerio that would mean an exaust leak may be present? I have this wierd issue where when my car is cold I floor it and you hear a wierd sound coming from the exaust like if you took a piece of a balloon and stretched it out and blew across it. After a while and my car gets warmed up it goes away. I look at it today and hear the noise even at idle when under my car, just very less present. Its 11 PM so I couldnt do a full look, but I saw water driping from this clamp, and its the only place I see taht and IM wondering if a leak could be here and what the tall tale signs would be?

 

tighten that ****

 

Yup it's an exhaust leak. I had mine welded so I never encountered this problem. If you don't want to weld it then take it apart and use some copper exhaust sealant.

 

i had the same problem when i first bought my magnaflow exhuast...just go to your local parts store and ask for exhuast sealant. take the rear half of the exhuast apart and put a bead of the exhuast sealant on the exhuast where it goes together...bottom it back up and you should be good to go..it fixed my problem. alot of the exhuast without actual gaskets leak. its common.

 

IM assuming under that clamp or what ever it is (will have to jack it up and look) is a hole or something? I just put the exaust sealent over the hole and put the clamp back on?

 

nah theres no hole under the clamp...its jsut the way they made the exhuast...its common on exhuast without gaskets. some don't get the prob and some do. It's just moisture from the heat skirting out and since there is no seal thats why it makes a wierd noise. but just like i said and you said he just needs to put exhuast sealant.

 

Why does your exhaust look all rusty? i thought it was stainless steel?

 

Since nobady really tackled the part of his question asking what the signs of a leak would be... Noise would be one giveaway, but the biggest is probably that nice crusty black carbon deposit, just like most of us have on our exhaust tips.

 

so where am I putting the exaust sealent, on the entire exaust? I guess IM a little confused where/how to use the exaust sealent. IM assuming since I hear the noise theres a hole, but the only place I see it leaking is under that clamp, so do I use the exaust sealent there or where?

are you talking where the pieces meet? cause I dont see any water dripping from them?

oh and yes its stainless steel, but it can still rust. I think if you brushed off all the rust though it would clean?

 

it sounds like its comming from behind the resonator, in other words not where it connects to the cat but a few feet back.

 

 

jeremy i got ya on friday well put her on ramps and take a look see we a def replacing some bolts

 

How bout thursday, cause I took off, and Friday we both busy getting stage kits

I cant believe we type when most of the time, your right downstairs LOL.

Can anyone explain how to use exhaust sealant?

 

I went and bought some exaust repair/sealant. I talked to the guy at pep boys and all he kept talking about was Gaskets. Does the magnaflow exaust use gaskets and if so where? I dont believe I understand what could be causing a leak? Is it a hole? or where the exaust pieces together? I guess I will figure most of this out when I take a look at it, but the exaust is brand new just about, so I wouldnt expect it to be a hole.

 

Stainless is not supposed to rust at all. That is definately weird to me. I have to go tighten my clamps on my Corsa right now too because I have a leak.

 

there is a gasket from resonator to cat converter. if you want we can use the sealer on the axle back clamp

reason it is rusting out cars love to drip black sut well since his is leaking it dripping out the leak and causing the bolts and clamps to rust which probably are not stainless

 

yo why does your stainless steel exhaust have rust on it????

im gona try to explain why your exhaust is leaking....
the smaller end of the tube slides in to the larger tube then you clamp it off...either that or you use a clamp with an extendor/connector to connect 2 equally sized tubes...i dont know exactly how yours is set up but its one of the above...
anyway, metal on metal almost never naturally creates a water/air tight seals...so what you have to do is put a ring of the exhaust sealant on the tube that inserts into the larger tube...think of it this way...its like spitting on your **** before you put it in (sorry so vulgar but its the only comparison my messed up mind could think about right now...)
after you put it in, the sealant filles the gaps that the metal on metal junction was leaving open
hope this helped
BTW i think they reccomed not driving your car for a few hours after you put that goop on your exhaust
good luck

 

BTW it also appears that you have a slight leak here too...or at least thats what it looks like in the pic (bottom of the gasket area)

 

sorry im posting so much consecutively, but i can better explain myself now...i drew exactly where your problem is, you can see that the larger of the pipes is slotted so the smaller one can fir into it, you can see that the carbon deposits are kinda spraying out of this area...
the exhaust sealant will take car of that, but you have to take the smaller end out and put the sealer on it...but ill bet that the problem can be fixed simply from pushing the smaller end in further..either way go get the sealant so you dont have to fix the same problem twice

 

yea Dan i saw that also. i will drop his exhaust off replace all bolts wire brush all rust and seal that **** i hope his gasket isnt bent!

 

i have a small leak too, i talk to magnaflow and they said its normal. The guy told me a little exhaust gas around the clamp is ok, when i called it was back in february when you could see the heat coming out of the tail pipe( due to the cold weather) he told me if i could visually see anything coming out around the clamp it was ok.

 

Thats where It sounds like the noise is coming from, and also thats where I see water dripping, and steam coming from.

Dont they coat the stainless steel with something? could it be the coating that is rusting and not the exaust itself? My exaust gets REALLY hot, when I went to the dyno it lit up red like the burner on your oven and ****. Also burnt a leather glove.

 

call me crazy, but ive never heard of any exhaust turning bright red from extreme heat like that. it must be crazy hot.

is anybody else having the same problems with the magnaflow???

BTW did u fix that leak yet??

 

Yea, me and my bro tried to fix it today. That bolt was on there like you would not believe. We WD40'ed that bitch, and even broke a socket wrench trying to get it to budge. I took it to Meinekee today since we wehre stuck, and he blow torched that thing off. I asked him if he could weld it and he did and only charged me 20 bucks. Needless to say I can definately tell the difference. No longer sounds like air is running free under my car LOL.

Yea as far as the red, it was wierd but I swear that **** was glowing.