Exhaust Repair and Protection

[mkamp]

Hi All,

I have some reasonably significant holes in my exhaust which I am embarking on repairing.
Around some of the flange joints the pipe has rusted out and the muffler has some huge rust holes in it.
I'll get the muffler section replaced by a exhaust shop, and am pretty handy with a MIG welder, so am able to patch the rust holes easy enough.

My question is, once I clean up the pipe, how do I then protect the steel from rusting again?
I have some VHT high temp paint I can use which will do the trick in the short term, but does anyone have any suggestions as to how I protect the paint from chipping off with stones ect hitting it under the truck and it starting to rust again? Is there another product that I can use?

In a perfect world I would just replace the whole thing with a stainless pipe, but unfortunately the Overland build budget doesn't extend quite that far.

Cheers

 

[Doodle]

To be honest it seems rather a pointless action. If it has started rusting through, you're fighting a losing battle - the exhaust is already halfway dead and it's only a matter of time before you're running more weld and patches than original metal.

Protecting it with some shielding plates will then cause problems with heat soak and lack of cooling airflow, and making them will likely be not dissimilar in cost to replacing the exhaust with stainless. The same goes for most coatings that would protect against the impacts and not burn off.

 

[mkamp]

You make a good point. Might do some more investigations to see how thick the rest of the pipe is to see how long I have until the rest of it falls to pieces. As you say, might be worth the investment in a new system at this point before I spend anything on it.

 

[Beau]

You could paint it and then wrap it in this high temp material/cloth.

 

[mkamp]

I tested the thickness of the pipe with an ultrasonic thickness gauge I dug up at work, turns out it ins not quite as bad as I thought. Its reading between 2-3mm for most of the pipe, just a few areas needing small patches.
New pipe is in the budget for next year.

 

[MuckyPup]

Get it nice and hot then spray a few light coats of decent weld through zinc primer then a sealer coat of exhaust silver.
Don't expect miracles, but it works ok.