Hey guys chris fix here and today, i'm going to teach you how to replace a leaking exhaust in your vehicle. In this case, it's due to rust, and i have two really good examples of this. The first example comes from this jaguar. Listen to this and you could hear how bad this exhaust sounds.

Not only is this embarrassing to drive around, but the fumes are getting into the car into the cabin and they are dangerous to breathe in. So that's not good. This has to be replaced. So let me real quick show you where the exhaust leak is coming from.

So if we take a look under the car, you can pretty much right away. Tell where it's coming from right there at the flex pipe you can see. The flex pipe over here has been damaged, it's all rusted and right over here. If we hit this area with some soapy water check out the exhaust gases bubbling up that soapy water, you could clearly see and hear the leak right there.

So a flex pipe is a very common failure. Point on exhaust systems that causes leaks, because this flex pipe moves and over time that movement combined with rust, will cause that to separate and allow exhaust gases out and you get your leak. So you need another flex. Pipe and that's exactly why they have exhaust systems for sale like this for each specific vehicle.

That way, you could swap it in there, so that is one very common example on an exhaust leak and i'll show you how to replace that and the second common example of an exhaust leak isn't on this car. It's on my pickup truck so check this out, and you could clearly hear and smell this exhaust leak as well. Let me show you where it is, and this is another common spot that exhausts tend to leak from, and it's called the flange it's where two exhaust pipes meet and are bolted together. The bolts are all rusted.

This connection is all rusted and that's where we're getting the leak here and i'm gon na show you how to fix this without having to weld. So let me show you all the tools and products you're going to need and, as always, i like to use common hand, tools and easy to find products that way after you guys are done watching this video you'll be able to repair your leaking exhaust yourself. No problem at all, so here's some tools that you might need. If you need to cut the exhaust system having a reciprocating saw works amazing.

It cuts through exhaust systems like butter. If not, don't worry, a handsaw will work as well, and you guys saw how much rust were on both exhaust systems. So i highly recommend some penetrating fluid and a couple days before spray down all the fasteners that you're going to have to remove that's what i already did and it's going to make it so much easier to remove them compared to not spraying them down. You're.

Also going to want to have some heat heat is going to be your best friend when working on rusted fasteners. Trust me on that. You'll see we'll be using this a lot, so it doesn't have to be map gas. It could be propane in this case map gas burns a little bit hotter, so it gets it a little bit warmer.

Then we have some sandpaper to remove some surface rust. We have common hand tools if you have a socket set a ratchet set hammer screwdriver stuff like that you're good, to go and then a little bit less common is an extractor set. Probably gon na need this, because again you saw all that rust. Those fasteners barely look like fasteners anymore.

They didn't look like nuts and bolts. This will help grab onto them. So i'll probably end up showing you how to use this. We have a digital caliper.

That way, we can measure the stock exhaust and then we can get the correct exhaust pieces because we need to know the outside diameter. Then we have one of these exhaust expanders. You might or might not need this, but i wanted to show you anyway, just in case. You need to expand the exhaust just a little bit and then finally, we're going to be using soapy water to check to make sure our repair is successful and we don't have any more leaks.

Now exhaust wise. We have brand new parts, so we have a bunch of different ones. We're not going to be using all these, but i wanted to get a bunch to show you the different types that you could use i'll cover all of them, including some rtv. That's specifically made for exhaust systems and i've used this before it works really well and then finally, we're going to need a dust mask and you can't forget about those safety glasses.

So let's get those on and those are all the tools and products you're going to need i'll, be sure to link them all in the description, so you can easily find them and now let's go under the truck and repair this leaking exhaust all right. So before you begin working on your exhaust system make sure that it is cool to the touch you don't want to burn yourself working on a hot exhaust. Now, with my pickup truck, the exhaust is really severely rusted and the exhaust leak is between each of these. Two flanges, where the two exhaust pipes meet: there's no fixing this.

So what we're gon na do is we're gon na cut right here and we're gon na cut right here and cut that exhaust flange out and install one of these pipes that fits over both ends of the exhaust like that, and then we can use exhaust clamps On each side to clamp it down and make sure there are no leaks now, let's just say, your flange is good on this side, but it's bad on this side. This is where your leak is. You could buy something like this and only cut one side of the exhaust unbolt this and then put this flange on and that'll fix your leak, but in this case this is so bad. This will not work now.

I want to real quickly cover how to measure your stock exhaust so that you know what size exhaust pipe you need to buy to make this repair, and this is actually very simple. The only thing you need to remember is to measure the outside diameter of your pipe. Exhaust pipes are measured from the outside, not the inside, so take your digital caliper clamp it on to the outside, and you can see. We have a two inch diameter exhaust on this side.

Now, if we look over here, this exhaust is getting thicker. So, let's see what this is and all you need to do again, open it up, clamp it down, and our exhaust on this side is two and a half inches, so we go from two and a half inches down to two inches and that's exactly why i Have a two and a half inch to two inch coupler like this and that's how easy it is to measure the exhaust. So let's go cut this out and install our coupler. Now we're going to want to cut this out as tight as possible.

So right about here and right about here that way our coupler could fit and overlap a decent amount. The more overlap we have, the better exhaust seal we're gon na get, so we don't get any leaks, but this bolt is definitely in the way. So, let's remove it, so i'm gon na use, locking pliers to grab on to what's left of the nut and then get a socket on the rusty bolt head, and i don't have high hopes for this. But let's see if we could get this loose without stripping it, and surprisingly, this is actually working all right.

So there we go. The first bolt has been removed. Now we're going to do the same thing for the other side, except this fastener is pretty rounded, so it might strip so lock the pliers onto the nut and get the socket on the bolt head and there's no way. This is gon na work nope.

This is definitely not gon na work, so unfortunately, our socket is just not grabbing onto this bolt because it's so rounded and rusted, but don't worry. I have a good trick to show you guys on how to remove rounded fasteners like this. The trick is to use an extractor socket set. These are awesome anytime.

You have rounded fasteners these grip onto the edges, even if it's completely rusted completely round you'll hammer this on and those sharp edges will grab onto the edge of that fastener and you'll be able to remove them now. What we're going to do is we're going to use one size smaller than what we already have so we're using a 15 millimeter. So that means we're going to use a 14 millimeter, and this is what we're gon na hammer onto the rounded bowl head so grab the socket and we wan na hammer it onto the bolt head. So it bites down onto the bolt and then we could try.

Unscrewing, the bolt and as you can see, the socket is grabbing onto that rounded bolt and there we go. The bolt has been removed all right. So after you successfully remove your rounded fastener. This socket is going to be on there good because we hammered it on there, so it is biting down.

How do you remove it? Very simply just throw it on the ground and it will pop right off just like that. So with both of our rusty bolts removed. Now we could cut nice and close to our flange, so we're not removing too much material. That way, we could fit our coupler in our coupler isn't long.

So it's definitely important that we cut nice and close to the flange, and it's also very important that we cut nice and straight so. A trick to make straight cuts is to get some tape and lay tape down nice and straight just like that, and then now you know, your cut is going to be straight when you follow that line. So i'll do the same thing on the other side, good and now, let's cut out our leaky flange. So just to show you guys, you don't need any fancy power tools, i'm going to use this hand saw and i'm setting it up upside down on this pipe.

Then we can reconnect the blade and tighten it down like so good. Now i have the clearance i need to saw this back and forth and to keep this cut a straight cut, i'm going to keep the blade lined up with the tape and just saw until you're, almost all the way through good. Now we want to grab a jack stand to hold the exhaust pipe up, so it doesn't just fall down when we're finished, cutting it and then, let's finish, cutting this in half good and now the one side is cut and just to show you the difference. For this side, i'm going to use a reciprocating saw and, like i said, these saws cut through exhaust systems like butter and that tape helps so much to keep these cuts straight so out with the old and in with the new.

Now, what we're gon na do is we're gon na slide this over and we can gently tap it in that way. It fits on this nice and snug, but before we do that, we need to make sure that we sand this down. So we have a nice smooth surface. This is all rusted and pitted and same thing on the other side, we'll be able to slide this all the way down as well, but we have to sand it and make it nice and smooth first.

So let's go do that and the trick with sanding is to use like 180 grit or something even more aggressive than that, and what you're gon na do is you're gon na take the sandpaper you're gon na wrap it around like that and you're just gon na Go back and forth, and this is a really efficient way to sand pipes and tubes and anything around like this all right so with our surfaces, nice and smooth we're able to slide our coupler onto both sides, no problem, nice and tight just like that, but before We go and seal up this exhaust there's one thing i always like to do with an open exhaust like this, and that is start up the car and see how it sounds all right here we go. Oh man, i'm gon na. Let her warm up just a little bit and then we'll give it a couple light revs and then we'll shut it off and get this fixed up. That actually sounds really good.

Oh baby, not a v8, but man. I love the sound of a loud exhaust. All right, let's get back to work, okay, so with that out of my system, let's go and finish up repairing this exhaust, so the exhaust couplers that you could buy are made just a little bit wider than the actual exhaust on your car. So this is a two and a half inch exhaust.

This is slightly larger than two and a half inches, so this goes on there pretty tight like that. If it's so tight that you can't get it on by hand like that, do not hit it with a hammer right on the edge here, because you will bend this exhaust instead. Get a piece of wood like this and hammer against the wood and that'll put even pressure against the whole exhaust piece. So you don't damage it, but in this case we don't need to do that.

It was easy enough to get on there and with that in place now we could grab our exhaust clamp and then we're going to clamp this right on the edge right here now you might be tempted to put your exhaust clamp on the bottom like that, but Don't do it for whatever reason something always likes to grab onto these studs and rip your exhaust out. Don't ask me how i know so always have it upside down or to the side like that that way, if something hits it, it doesn't rip the exhaust off. Since it has nothing to grab good so with that in place, let's get the nuts on these studs and hand, tighten it down all the way and then now what we're gon na do is we're gon na tighten these up with a wrench and you wan na Tighten a little by little on each side to evenly clamp down onto this exhaust pipe. That way we have an even clamping force and it seals entirely around the entire exhaust beautiful.

So that's on there good. We won't have any exhaust leaks because that's clamping down and it's nice and tight. This is not going anywhere. Now, let's get the rear exhaust pipe into the coupler and make sure you slide it in deep enough and then let's get the exhaust clamp on there hand tighten both of the nuts down and then use a wrench to tighten them down back and forth little by Little to evenly seal the exhaust system and don't be afraid to snug these down pretty tight.

So that's all there is to fixing a leak in an exhaust system, now grab your soapy water and thoroughly spray down the connection to test it for leaks and, let's go start the car okay moment of truth. Well i'll tell you one thing that sounds a lot better than before: let's go under the car and take a look at it, we'll spray that down - and i don't see any bubbles coming out of this exhaust. So that's nice and sealed on this side and let's check this side, real, quick spray, that down beautiful and i don't see any bubbles coming out on this side either. This is nice and sealed, and it's nice and quiet too alright.

So our exhaust is leak, free and sounds great. No more embarrassing exhaust leak noise. Now, let's just say you do have a small leak because of imperfections. Maybe it's not completely round.

Maybe there's a little bit of rust, whatever it is. What you would do is you would get a little bit of rtv. This is specifically made for exhaust systems, so you could use it on here and it could heat up and it'll be fine, so with a cold exhaust. Take this apart, put some rtv on the inside, really get it in there.

You don't worry about using too much it'll squeeze out and then clamp it all together and let it sit for 24 hours before starting your car after 24 hours. All those leaks will be sealed up by the rtv and you'll be good to go, but this came out perfect. So now we're done here - and this is one way to fix an exhaust leak beautiful. So we are leak, free, no more exhaust fumes in the cabin of the car and also listen to this nice and quiet.

It actually sounds really good, now, no more exhaust leak and we're good to go. So, let's back the truck out of here with its repaired quiet exhaust and get the jag up on ramps and just listen to that exhaust leak horrible next, let's chalk off the wheels, so it doesn't roll and we also need to lift the rear end up so Slide a jack underneath the subframe and jack it all the way up, the higher you get it the more room you have to work with the car jacked up instead of jack stands, i'm gon na be using wheel, cribs and then you could slowly let the car Down like that, so with the car safely lifted up, i'm gon na show you another method for fixing your leaking exhaust and, in this case we're gon na be replacing an entire exhaust section, and this is completely bolt on. So we have two bolts right here. We have a bolt right here for the exhaust hanger and then at the back.

There is another bolt right here with an exhaust clamp and then all we need to do is remove that remove the old exhaust and install this new one and we'll fix it. Now. This is a little bit more expensive, so this was a hundred dollars. I bought it off ebay and if we went to an exhaust shop i asked them.

They said it would cost about 300 we're saving about 200 and that's pretty good. That's a lot of money to save, so it's not too difficult to do so. Let's get started and remove the old leaky exhaust, and so you have an idea of where we are right. Here is the oil pan that's the front of the car and then, if we follow the exhaust system back towards the middle of the car, we have our leaking flex pipe right here.

So this right here will probably be the most difficult part of this entire video, because this is really rusted. That bolt head is barely a bolt head anymore that nuts decent, but there's not a lot of space here, but that bolt head is like it's going to be interesting. So let me show you how to attack this first, let's spray the fasteners down with penetrating fluid, and i've been doing this for the last couple of days, but it doesn't hurt to do it again now. This bullhead is so rounded and rusted.

It would be a waste of time to try to remove it from this side, so instead, let's try removing the nut on the backside, which is in a lot better condition. So let's get the wrench on here and let's hit it with a hammer because hard impacts like this tend to break rusted, fasteners free and that didn't work so on to plan b and that is to use our torch to heat. The nut up until it's cherry red, the heat, expands the metal a little bit, and this does two things: it breaks that rust free, but it also gives the nut a little bit more clearance. So with this cherry red, let's try again and that's what i'm talking about check that out nice and loose.

I can't believe it because this is rusted. So let's remove the nut the rest of the way and be careful because it is hot. Then let's grab a hammer and a punch and let's hammer out that rusted bolt out of the flange, you can see it's starting to separate the flange a little up and there we go. The bolt is broken free and now that the bolt's been removed.

Look at how rusty this is all right, so we got the nut and bolt off on that side. Now, let's get this one off on this side, and this looks even worse, but i'm going to use the same exact process because we know it works so heat. It up until the nut is cherry red. Then, let's break it free with our wrench, beautiful and finally loosen the nut, the rest of the way and remove it.

Now we need to hammer out the bolt, let's just press this out the rest of the way, and there you go. It's amazing how much heating up rusted, nuts and bolts helps when trying to remove them, and now our exhaust is disconnected from the flange. So, as you guys saw, this thing was hanging on by a thread and now we have it completely removed from our flange here. So now there's one bolt holding in the exhaust right here on an exhaust hanger and then there's one bolt in the back that we need to remove, and then we can remove this entire exhaust.

Now we might as well heat this bolt up, so we don't have any problems, removing it perfect and with the bolt broken loose. Let's remove it the rest of the way and then let's push the exhaust up and off the hanger and place it on a jack. Stand so it's not just hanging there so with the front part of the exhaust completely unbolted, let's follow the exhaust to the back of the car where it connects to the muffler good. So this is the part of the exhaust we need to remove it's held in by this exhaust clamp and that clamps it into this part right here which goes into the muffler.

So we need to remove the bolt holding in this exhaust clamp and i don't even know if you could call that a bolt anymore that is so rusted, so there's no point to actually try to unbolt this. It's solid rust. So what we're gon na do to make this go back quickly. Is we're just gon na cut this right here now? If you want, you could use a handsaw like this to cut the exhaust clamp, but i have a cutoff wheel, which is way quicker.

Just make sure any time you use a cut off wheel, you use a full face shield because i have seen these break and go flying and it's not pretty so a full face shield is a must and check it out now the clamp is cut now. This is so rust, welded onto the exhaust, i'm trying to hammer it off and i'm also going to pry on the side of the exhaust clamp, just because it's really stuck on here. One more hit should do it good and now the clamp could be removed. Next, we need to separate the exhaust pipe, so try hammering it apart and that's what i thought this isn't gon na budge.

So let's use the torch and heat this up good, and now we can wiggle this back and forth until it's free just like that. So, with our exhaust completely disconnected now we can remove it from under the car and out with the old and in with the new i love seeing those things side by side. Now, before we install the new exhaust there's one more thing we need to do, and that is starter up with an open exhaust, and here we go. Let's see what she sounds like all right that sounds really good, and once the idle drop down it kind of sounds like a v8 just a little bit.

It sounds really good. Oh man holy smokes. This sounds so good straight piped. It makes me almost not want to put the exhaust back on, but we got to get it back on to finish this job.

So let's get back down there and reinstall the new exhaust and we're going to start from the back of the exhaust and move forward. Because we have to slide this end of the exhaust into the exhaust pipe, that's already in the car. So let's get this under the car and before we try to fit the new exhaust in let's sand the inside of the pipe so that it removes any loose rust and makes it a lot easier to install good and now, let's try to slide it in. Actually, this is still a little too tight.

So to fix this, we have an exhaust pipe expander, just put it into the exhaust, then use a ratchet to tighten it down and as you're tightening it, it causes the tool to expand and widen the exhaust good. So with our exhaust spread open just a little bit more, let's remove the exhaust expander and let's try this again and what a difference just make sure you press in the exhaust deep enough that way, there are no exhaust leaks. Alright! So now you might be tempted to clamp this in, but don't do that just yet because right now the exhaust is hanging down and we have to go to the front of the car and get that exhaust up into place and the reason why we don't clamp This down now is because we want this to swivel and move and just be able to flex as we try to get the front in the front has the flange. We need to make sure that bolts in nice and tight and even then after that's in we could come back here and clamp this down now at the flange.

This is all pitted and rusty, so it's important that we sand it down to make it nice and smooth otherwise, there's a good chance, we'll get exhaust leaks good so with that nice and smooth we're also going to be using an exhaust gasket to prevent exhaust leaks. Since the original exhaust had a gasket on it now, let's grab the bolts to hold the new gasket in place, but these are all rusted. So i have some extra bolts laying around from other projects and let's get these into the exhaust flange, and now we have a place to put our exhaust gasket, so it holds it in place and finally, we can get the new exhaust lined up and hand. Tighten a nut on there so that it stays in place.

Now we could tighten down each of the nuts a little at a time that way the exhaust clamps up evenly and since we have a gasket, we don't need to make this crazy, tight, but definitely snug them up, so it clamps onto that gasket good, all right! So with both of those fasteners tightened down, so this squeezes together, nice and even on a nice flat mating surface. This is going to be leak-free and this is all good to go. Now, let's get our exhaust hanger on there, so get the hanger in place and then lift up on the exhaust a little to slide the peg on the hanger into the exhaust and then finally, we can get the bolt in and tighten it down until. It's snug good, and now this is nice and secure beautiful.

Now the exhaust is all bolted in up here. So let's follow the new exhaust. All the way down to the muffler - and the last thing to do is to clamp down on this exhaust so that it is leak-free so grab your exhaust, clamp and remember. You always want the exhaust clamp to face upwards, so nothing grabs onto these studs and rips.

The exhaust out so we're gon na place it right there just hand, tighten these nuts on here, get the other one on as well, and then you wan na tighten these down with a ratchet so they're pretty tight, but remember to work back and forth so that They tighten down evenly tighten down one bolt a little bit and just keep going back and forth, so it clamps down evenly and seals the entire perimeter of the exhaust. So we don't have any leaks at all. So now, with this tightened down, let's grab some soapy water spray, this down and start up the car to make sure we don't have any leaks, excellent, i don't see any bubbles at all and we can spray it down a little bit more and really get it Wet to make sure there are absolutely no leaks, and this looks good. Not only do i not see leaks, but i don't hear any either, so this is good to go now.

Let's check the front of the car and with this sprayed down you can see there are no bubbles and i can't hear any exhaust leaks either. She sounds way better now. So here's what it sounded like before, with the leak and after and listen to that difference. It sounds amazing now also it doesn't smell like fumes inside the car, which is very important, so there you go.

I just gave you two different methods on how to repair a leaking exhaust. That way, you guys could do this at home yourself without using a welder. Now you have no excuses not to fix your leaking exhaust now. Hopefully, the video was helpful if it was remember to give it a thumbs up if you're not a subscriber, consider hitting that subscribe button and as always, all the tools and products i used in this video are linked in the description.

.