exhaust gasket advice please?

[Bobba]

Just a quick question about replacing an exhaust gasket as mine failed on the way home from passing its MOT yesterday not great but at least it didnt happen on the way there
Anyway its the gasket between the pipe coming out of the rear cylinder and the collector box section.
Do I need to replace all the gaskets and take the lot apart or can I slacken the joints off and just replace the one that ended up wedged in the DB killer?

gasket.JPG (79.77 KiB) Viewed 10334 times

Moral of the story is not to put the DB killers in as this caused the extra pack pressure leading to the gasket failing. This is the reason officer I cant ride around with them in
Thanks in advance guys

[Screaming Chief]

If that's the gasket that fits into the rear downpipe, effectively sitting in the swingarm hole, you will need to probably undo the nuts from the front cylinder head and remove the pipe so you have room to drop the rear collector section away, otherwise you wont have enough room to put the new gasket in.

Once you have seated the new gasket, you will be able to push the collector section up towards the rear downpipe and (hopefully with the help of a second set of hands) you can loosely fit the front onto the cylinder head and lightly fit the front cylinder buts to hold it in place while you make sure the rear downpipe and collector section seals properly.

Before you do all of that, make sure (if you still have the very small section of pipe that comes out of the rear cylinder) the gasket in that section is still whole, as on my bike, until I welded the small pipe to the rear downpipe, mine always used to blow that gasket first and was an utter pig to replace.You can tell Honda realised it was a shit design as they made the rear cylinder pipe in one piece on the SP2 rather than the half arsed two piece design on the SP1, so you only need 3 gaskets on the SP2, whereas 4 are required on the SP1.

I have found since I welded the rear section, that the gaskets blow less frequently and at least the ones that join the silencers, can be done much more easily, with the main part of the exhaust being left in situ.

[Bobba]

If that's the gasket that fits into the rear downpipe, effectively sitting in the swingarm hole, you will need to probably undo the nuts from the front cylinder head and remove the pipe so you have room to drop the rear collector section away, otherwise you wont have enough room to put the new gasket in.

Once you have seated the new gasket, you will be able to push the collector section up towards the rear downpipe and (hopefully with the help of a second set of hands) you can loosely fit the front onto the cylinder head and lightly fit the front cylinder buts to hold it in place while you make sure the rear downpipe and collector section seals properly.

Before you do all of that, make sure (if you still have the very small section of pipe that comes out of the rear cylinder) the gasket in that section is still whole, as on my bike, until I welded the small pipe to the rear downpipe, mine always used to blow that gasket first and was an utter pig to replace.You can tell Honda realised it was a shit design as they made the rear cylinder pipe in one piece on the SP2 rather than the half arsed two piece design on the SP1, so you only need 3 gaskets on the SP2, whereas 4 are required on the SP1.

I have found since I welded the rear section, that the gaskets blow less frequently and at least the ones that join the silencers, can be done much more easily, with the main part of the exhaust being left in situ.

Cheers Chief! Makes loads of sense taking it off at the front to let the collector drop down
It is the section behind the front of the swingarm so is a little pain to get to and I'll need to cut the old clamp off as its VERY rusty but fingers crossed it might just snap the bolt while I'm trying to undo it
Job for this weekend then

[steve p]

agree with SC get going Bobba

[Screaming Chief]

When you have fitted the gasket and are ready to put it all back together, forget the mentally expensive Honda oem exhaust clamps which seem to be made of Swiss cheese and get some of these :-

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/270963020213? ... 1497.l2649

Four for less than a tenner.

Whereas Honda oem is over £20 for ONE clamp !

Unlike the Honda ones, which basically snap in half or twist to buggery when you try to undo the rusted section (they seem to rust very quickly at the first signs of wet weather/salty roads)

Even though the bolt on the Mikalor clamps is only mild steel, it can be done up/undone successfully, multiple times as it's a 10mm bolt you can easily get a socket onto and they are much easier to do up at multiple angles.

[Bobba]

Ordered this morning from Fleabay and will pop to Pidcocks later for the gaskets once I've got my head down for a couple of hours

[Screaming Chief]

Ordered this morning from Fleabay and will pop to Pidcocks later for the gaskets once I've got my head down for a couple of hours

Wish I had a local dealer that actually carried SP1 items in stock, Reading Honda have sweet f.a on the shelf.

Getting pissed off today, waiting on a package of parts (including exhaust gaskets) from Lings, no sign of RM today ............

[Bobba]

Well I hope theyve got them in stock!!
I've got 2 only a few miles away from me so I'll pop over after the school run in the morning
I've never had any problems with Pidcocks in the past and they do seem to carry a couple of bits in their stock room and got the other bits I needed in the past the next day. Any they couldnt get they posted out to me anyway
Hope your bits turn up soon before you miss out on the 3 or 4 days of summer we might get this year

[Screaming Chief]

My little bag of bits from Lings finally turned up via Royal Snail post at 3 frikkin pm.Normally get post at about 10.45 a.m. so spent a wee while staring out the window and swearing at every passing van.

In the end, I only used one gasket (same place yours blew) in my rebuild as the ones at the silencers mounting points tend to last twice as long as the ones nearer the cylinders.

I had previously welded the rear cylinder short section to the rear downpipe so I dont have to frig around with trying to undo the nuts from the rear cylinder as it often ends with snapped off studs which then have to re retapped and I only ever want to have needed to retap an ally cylinder head the once thanks.

Welding the two rear parts together saves on gaskets, it never blows and means the rear can stay in situ and although the downpipe gasket needs replacing, leaving the rear downpipe on means the rest of the system is much easier to put back together when one part is bolted at the right height/angle

I now have two "spare" gaskets ready for when the next one blows.

Luckily I had one new Mikalor clamp I put on the rear sections to clamp them together:waiting on a delivery from autopartsonline that I hoped would be with me today, but at least if/when I need to put new clamps on, they are shedloads cheaper/longer lasting/better quality and more robust than the Honda oem crap, as well as the main bolt being a decent quality 10mm head, as opposed to the bolt on the oem Honda which usually rusts in the clamp, meaning you have to snap the clamp in half to get the bugger off to replace the gaskets, it became a nine month(ish) replacement cycle for mine, due to the weather the bike sees all year round.

[Bobba]

I had previously welded the rear cylinder short section to the rear downpipe so I dont have to frig around with trying to undo the nuts from the rear cylinder as it often ends with snapped off studs which then have to re retapped and I only ever want to have needed to retap an ally cylinder head the once thanks.

Welding the two rear parts together saves on gaskets, it never blows and means the rear can stay in situ and although the downpipe gasket needs replacing, leaving the rear downpipe on means the rest of the system is much easier to put back together when one part is bolted at the right height/angle.

That's a great idea Chief. If it blows again quite soon then cost wise it'll be cheaper to have it welded up in my mates lunch break than nearly £20 worth of Honda gaskets