Exhaust Question

Hello everyone! The exhaust on my 2012 TRD OR had a loud drone at highway speed. The other day I noticed some soot around the clamp just in front of the muffler. I tightened the clamp yesterday, it is was much quieter. Today I had a friend hold a rag over the tailpipe to build a bit more backpressure, and there was still quite a bit of exhaust coming out at the bottom of the clamp. Like a real cool dumb dumb, I tried to tighten it more and broke the bolt. Turns out, the clamp and welded on.

Is this normal for this clamp to be welded on? I got the truck used, so I don’t know the full history. Under the clamp on the bottom, there is a slit in the pipe that the clamp was covering that was the source of the leak. Noticing that the muffler doesn’t have a weep hole in the muffler, I am wondering if this is the weep hole? Seems like a strange place to put it. The joint that the clamp is on looks to be fully welded with the exception of the slit. Can I just weld over the slit, cut the hanger off, and call it a night?

Thanks in advance!

 

I'm no welder but that looks bad. I don't think you can weld onto rusted out metal. Looks like you need a new exhaust pipe from whatever point upwards of the engine back to the rear. Depending on how the rest of it looks.

 

It actually isn’t as rusty as it looks in the pics. The welds don’t look very good though, you are right there.

 

Well. In my experience a "weak link" remains a weak link no matter what you do to it. It is just a "bandaide" to try and patch it so to speak. But that is just me. I would rather just take care of the entire problem in one blow.

 

That’s not the original exhaust. Time to replace or have it repaired correctly

 

Can you remove the clamp? If so ,cut off, drill out or drive out the broken bolt (it looks pressed in from the serrations on it) and replace with a hardware store bolt and double nuts. Re-install clamp over slot. You could bring it to a muffler shop and have the slot welded up too. It looks like you are in a no salt state from the looks of the underside of the truck?

 

Stock Tacoma exhaust from factory is 1 piece welded from right behind the rear cats under the front seats. If you have a replaced muffler that has the front of the pipe clamped on they do sell that front pipe at auto store Muffler to rear cat that has the front flange to the cat.

 

Thank you all for the responses. Good to know that this is not a factory muffler. I ended up dropping the exhaust last night, cutting off the clamp, and welding the slot. This is just a quick/temporary fix, I am headed out skiing today and didn’t want to listen to loud exhaust the whole time! I will end up replacing it soon, and will have the exhaust reroute done at the same time so my skid plates can sit higher.

Thanks again TW!

 

On another note...Skiing in July? That's awesome!

 

It wasn’t too bad at all!