When exhaust systems go wrong.....

[philwecksr]

This has to be quick, but here's the gist. Merging with the highway somewhere in the 70mph range when I hit a bump about the size of a small child (thank you city of cincinnati street maintenance). I see it coming so I stand up on the footpegs like MSF taught me, take the bump, no problem.

Then I notice my exhaust note has jumped a good 30000000 decibles from where it was a minute ago. Strange. I know its the exhaust, but what, hmmmm......

Well at my exit I use the red light to turn around see whats up. Ok, there is my can, midpipe, and.... oh, well that just ends at the ground. The bump apparently jarred my midpipe out of the collector and it has been scraping along the highway for a mile or two. well damn.

So I pull into a white castle at the exit to get it put back together. Apparently cincinnati road maintenance people are hires from white castle as this parking lot is littered with potholes I could hide in. The midpipe gets caught on one as I idle to a parking space, and next thing I know the bike jumps, midpipe gets torn off and the can gets tucked up in the wheel well between the tire and the frame. Great.

I've got some pictures that I can post later once I get hosted. I think the saddest part is carrying around 200 dollars in worthless exhaust bits.

On the positive side, I've still got my stock exhaust because I"ve been too lazy to ebay it, and this is an excuse to get the carbon fibre Yoshi I've wanted for a while.

Growl.....

[Court93kat]

Man... that really sucks. Maybe the city can cover the damages for you.

[mystahagy]

Glad to hear you're ok! This has happened to a few of us, you're not alone.

http://www.katriders.com/forums/viewtopic.php?p=79991&highlight=#79991

[md86]

Damn , dude . Seeing LOTS of construction around lately . They're trying to get it all done before winter hits , it seems .

[ChattKat]

That sucks

[The CyberPoet]

OK, I'm just a bit confused as to how a pothole (virtually any size) or bump could cause the 2" overlap between the mid-pipe and collector to separate on the OEM exhaust system unless at least one (or more likely both) rear support bolts sheared or were missing.... :

Meanwhile, that sucks. I wonder if there is any liability on the part of those responsible for road and parking lot maintenance?

Cheers,
=-= The CyberPoet

[HS2020]

Call the local city and tell them what took place. I know here I hit a manhole where the road sunk around it and therfore made it higher than the road surface. It tore a whole in my oil pan of my car. My car was lowered and I told them it was. They said no problem we will replace your oil pan. They were out there the next day fixing this problem on the road and paid for a new oil pan on my car.

[AMorgan]

Hehehe, it's Cincinnati, what were you expecting? After the first thaw of every year I can't get home without serious thuds from my wheel wells, and thats without being lowered. The street maintenance sucks in this town.

[StevieB]

I'm a little worried about you, philwecksr. "The size of a SMALL CHILD?" Something happen to you when you were young, that you might want to explore with your therapist??

[skotty]

Ouch! that hurt just reading about it. I too have been lazy about selling my stock exhaust, maybe thats a good thing then. I hope the wheel was not extensively damaged.

[philwecksr]

Cyber, it wasn't the OEM exhaust, Wileyco slip on. I still have the OEM which might have to get bolted back on now. Interesting idea to call the city, never would have thought about that. Gonna give that a wirl and see whats up.

[thecynic]

I would call up the wileyco distributer you purchased it from too.

I remember a ton of them were sold with the wrong size piping to connect to the downpipe. If incorrectly sold/manufactured parts are partially to blame, maybe they'll at least give you a discount on a replacement.

[The CyberPoet]

I would call up the wileyco distributer you purchased it from too.

I remember a ton of them were sold with the wrong size piping to connect to the downpipe. If incorrectly sold/manufactured parts are partially to blame, maybe they'll at least give you a discount on a replacement.

If he got the eBay WileyCo deal, there's no going back to anyone... The story goes like this:

WileyCo, an European outfit, used to move their US stock through a distributor. The distributor did a poor job in their opinion, and either WileyCo cut the relationship or the distributor went bankrupt on their own -- somewhere between 1995 and 1997. WileyCo stopped doing business in the USA, drew back to lick it's wounds and concentrate on the European market. Fast-forward to 2004, and some enterprising guy (or small firm?) bought the remaining original distributor's stock at auction for pennies on the dollar (whether it was a case of someone clearing out the storage facility they were in, or if it was the bankruptcy being finalized is beyond me). This person then turned around and started slapping them out on eBay reasonably cheap... but found that there was a limited demand for some of the rarer models (say a Ducati Monster 600 muffler), so they figured out what else they would work on (enter the Kat) and started relisting them for the Kats.

Late 2005 rolled around, and a new distributor (Flying "A" Motorsports) working out of Sarasota, FL started picking up WileyCo products again -- but is focusing primarily on the automotive market (they don't intend on carrying MC exhausts any time soon because it's not thier forte). The current MC exhaust designs also don't match the old exhaust mount system, so you couldn't even order the "right" midpipe to match... And this firm has zero connection with the California-based guy who was slapping out the old stock.

Thus, as far as going to the distributor/seller is concerned, he has pretty much zero recourse. He has a pipe marked "Not for Street Use" sold by an unsupported close-out buyer under (eBay) auction terms, so in that sense there's no help to be found upstream in the logistics chain.

But it does raise an interesting question: how did you mount the midpipe? Did you use an adaptor, did you use the OEM mid-pipe that came with it and eliminate the collector gasket, did you cut the existing midpipe, etc?

Cheers
=-= The CyberPoet

[philwecksr]

I used all the parts that came in my kit. midpipe, can, and hanger from wileyco, rest stock. Pulled the gasket thingy out of the collector so it would fit. Froze the midpipe in some ice for a while to shrink it down a bit, then put some muffler paste (orange tube that was discussed from autozone or advance or somthing) in the collector and around the midpipe, and shoved the midpipe in as deep as was reasonable. Let the paste cure and then delt with the minor exhaust leak I had. I've riden HARD on this pipe for about 3 months now, and I don't knwo why it picked this week to let go. Odd, but probably just a fatigue failure of some sort....