Centre Exhaust Clamp Replacement

I have been told by a person who knows a lot about these cars that this is a common problem with the 260 / V8 cars and probably the same on the other variants.

I could see that the old clamp was failing based on the several carbon marks around the joint and the occasional sniff of fumes. So I bought a replacement ready to do the job that had now arrived. The “official” part for the job was nearly £50 but the part I bought via ebay was £10! …. it looked identical.

So got the rear of the car on ramps – still not a lot of room down there as the car being so low to the ground to start with – and got started. I had previously put some gungum around the joint as a temp repair which I was quite impressed how hard it had set as it took quite a bit of getting off.

The old clamp loosened off quite easily as the straps broke without a lot of effort and with a bit of gentle hammering slid the old clamp back onto the rear section. Even with unhooking the centre rubber hangers there was not enough sideways movement on the pipes to slide what was left of the old clamp off and the new clamp on so I had the cut through the old clamp which was very tricky being so close to the plastic fuel tanks!!! I protected the tank with some sheets of ply in case the angle grinder slipped.

So now I had to get the new clamp on! There was no way i could slide the new clamp onto the end of one pipe to then slide back over the other as there was not enough movement in the pipes without dismantling the whole centre section. Fortunately the new clamp easily came apart and I was able to open up and wrap the 2 sleeves over the pipe and stagger the joint gap. Then put new clamps over the pipe and positioned them around the sleeves. I had to prop the rear section half an inch that kept the front and rear exhaust halves inline whilst I tightened the clamps.

Job done but not one I would like to do again soon. The new clamp although was supposed to fit a 60mm pipe did not seem big enough. It came with M10 bolts which were not long enough so I had to use some longer M8 bolts – I think a 62mm clamp would have been a better fit ……. or better still to have used my local garage to do the job!!