Exhaust(ing) work- Trooper

Exhaust work on the trooper.  I'd noticed it being a bit loud, and finally couldn't ignore the leak any more….  As it turned out, it was just about to fall apart!

Many spots looked like this- maybe a pin-hole but once you start poking, it all crumbles.  

Worse- on disassembly the flexible joint completely detached from the rest of the exhaust…  Definitely need some new pipes here, and it turns out we need everything from the manifold back.

The pipe comes in two sections to be clamped together.  Unfortunately the front section is completely unavailable for ordering, and the rear section- well, there's something that looks right but is listed with a different part number, not guaranteed to fit…  So after ordering it I learned that the pipe is the exact right shape, but the hangers are mounted in the wrong place for the trooper.  Fortunately, I needed to work with the guys at Midas to get the front pipe fabricated, so it was pretty quick for them to also weld the hangers on to the right spot:

Here's the whole system from the manifold (in the foreground) back to the tailpipe. 

  I decided I didn't want to try to fabricate this complicated pipe myself, so I brought it to Midas where they have a pipe-bender and they made up a custom pipe for me:

 Unfortunately, it's really hard to make a pipe to fit perfectly when you don't have the car there to test-fit it in, so when I got the pipe back to the garage to put on the trooper, there were several spots where it wasn't fitting.  So it fell to me to do some re-bending too get it into shape:

This process was repeated many, many times- note that after the pipe is heated up and bent a bit, you have to wait for it to cool sufficiently to handle in order to crawl under the trooper to test-fit it, and determine how much you need to bend it next, and where…  so it was a time-consuming process.  But in the end, the exhaust is in and well sealed!  

Oil changes on Trooper and Golf

Nothing too exciting to report really:

Golf- oil and filter change, 205079 miles
Trooper- oil, filter change, 166033 miles.

Also lubed the front end joints on the trooper.

also...  poured the wrong stinking oil into the golf- the 10w30 non-synthetic I'd brought home for the trooper.  Had to drain it, and put it in the trooper after the fact...  lesson: keep track of the different types of oil you bring home!