Silencers..

[laxeian]

Recentley fitted a new silencer onto my F6, all was well until this morning, now in the lower rev range of each gear the baffle in the silencer appears to of come loose, sounds like a handfull of ball bearings have suddenly found a new home, its definitely the baffle in the silencer itself, its been on the van @1-1500km, vans not running hot or lean, to me its running really well, going to see if some gentle adjustment with 4lb hand tools works together with trying to re-weld the spot welds that look to theoretically hold baffle in place, but really didn’t think it was something that I’d have to readdress after such a short time span.
Am I just unlucky or is this common with aftermarket ‘copy’ silencers, or are some better than others?

 

[jcarruthers2]

Hi Laxeian

Happened to me twice with two aftermarket silencers within a few months of fitting. There are some poor quality silencers out there. Have now had a new old stock Walker silencer on mine for over a year, no problems so far.

 

[Andy McGhee]

Hi Ian
I've found Bosal and Imasaf pipes and silencers really good. Genuine Renault silencers seem to come up on eBay from time to time too - more often in Spain than the UK.

 

[malcolm]

Some of the aftermarket silencers are horrid with the skin wrapped around the baffles and not welded. Plug welds or a good tap with an axe or similar shaped bit of hammer should pull the skin in enough to prevent rattles.

Inside they can be even worse. Here is a Bosal silencer - well made, reasonable gas flow:



Here is a random aftermarket exhaust made from perf pipe with the ends crimped in the middle chamber! Also no welds to hold the skin to the baffles. It rattled.



I modified mine to make it straight through and stuffed the cavities with glass fibre stuffing. Sounded much better :-) A bit of farting on over-run but performance better for a modified engine and sound levels fine with just a little more character.

 

[montenegro]

I put a metal rod down the input end and gave it a few clouts, lot better sound !!

 

[laxeian]

Thanks for the reply’s people,
Time for a more detailed search, after a weird real life parody of ‘Faulty Towers’ where an english Manuel does a Basil and gives the existing silencer a damm good thrashing in the garage tomorrow,hopefully not before putting his head in his hands because he’s rendered his car unroadworthy until the replacement comes..

 

[mojobaby]

Thanks for the silencer photos Malcolm, its actually the first time I've seen inside.

Now I understand why the silencer on my 850 rattles so much. Its the loose baffles

 

[laxeian]

Just a quick follow on, fitted silencer was infact an Imasaf item, so it looks as if I was just unlucky with the one that arrived, fortunatley it didn't require too much modification or tools (4lb club and a tyre lever) to silence the rattle, heres a pic of silencer, the effective blows/dents in this particular case are the ones to the right of the spot/plug weld, the other nicks are just ‘feeler’ blows to locate where a ‘good’ hit would be effective to stop rattle.