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Dawley sent my exhaust and tailpipe back. I've assembled it the way it came off. Somehow it doesnt appear correct? The support tab on the tailpipe is too low. Dawley said it should be 6.5" from the end (it's at 7"). You can see it's at least 1" off. Even at 6.5" wouldn't be enough. Also at the bottom where the support arms come together, isn't quite square with the pipe?
Thoughts?
You can cut the pipe off to get the correct length for the braces but that will shorten the amount of tail pipe in the slip stream. You could put a cresent wrench on the tab and twist it to more align with your support rods. I have made my own support rods from stainless steel tubing from Aircraft Spruce by crimping the ends in a vice and drilling the holes in the flat part. Also, I seem to remember those tail pipes having a slightangle to them about mid length, maybe that is just on the PA16.
Could you make a clamp from bar stock same dims as the other clamps, and wrap it around the pipe above the erroneous tab?
A local muffler shop should be able to do it.
Call it a minor mod & owner produced part.
Your tab welded to the tailpipe looks a little sturdier than what mine was when we did the conversion.
My tab broke and I got a clamp that was the right diameter from the exhaust welding shop up in Minn somewhere,
(memory is a sad thing to loose as we age). I fit it around the tailpiper and adjusted it to the right postion
so the bolt would go thru both holes in the clamp and the two support rods. Basically I think what Glen
was suggesting. Making two new support tubes would not be hard to do either, little more time but a fairly
simple fabrication. Steve uses stainless. My old ones on the O-320 were 4130 and seem to hold up ok.
Thanks for the ideas. I paid Dawley $150 bucks for it so id like it to be right. My other pipe was pretty beat up from an accident so now im wondering if the previous owner made these brackets to accommodate their repair? If i lengthen the firewall side tube, that will bring the attach point lower as well as solve the alignment issue in my 3rd photo. Dawley also offered to make me a new one.