Prowler

[LIAW]

I've been working on my silencers which were a lot more involved than I imagined, they were both a bit tatty but the right hand one had damage from the crash which needed sorting out,

first of all I had no chance of fixing the damaged strap at the front of the silencer, I do have some on other silencers that I could use the straps from but the holes don't line up, that would mean the holes show through the gaps in the strap, so I need to think of something different,

I thought about just cutting some solid strips of stainless to make the strap but then thought about something different, if I change one then I have to change all 4 for looks,

in my 'store' I have a corrosion coated brass container or whatever, I don't remember where it came from but it will do the job, so I marked out and cut 4 equal rings,

once they were cut out I ran them over my deburring wheel to remove the corrosion, then put them aside as I work on the other bits,

next step was to totally disassemble both silencers, then I did some work on the damaged right hand one, the front link pipe area was damaged beyond straightening so I had a choice of cutting out the damage and welding in new metal or make a cover plate, I chose cover plate for simplicity as I doubt the actual damage will cause any difference to the bikes modest power output,

I also noticed that some cracking had occurred where I previously welded the link pipe to the silencer, so I made a cover plate and welded it in place and welded over the cracked area,

all welds were then ground down along with a bit of grinding on the crash damaged lettering to try and smooth that out, I'll never make it perfect as the scrapes are too deep,

after grinding the welds the areas were given a first stage polish,

it was always my intention to shorten these silencers so the next thing I did was to remove the 'FUEL' logo badges and mark a line around the silencer just short of the rivet hole for the logo, I mark an equal length line on the inner tubing and cut away the unwanted areas and smooth off the edges,

when both silencers were cut I could make a start on making the new brass 'straps', it was not as easy as I anticipated as I found the brass quite hard to bend evenly, stainless is quite predictable in the way it bends but brass seems to bend like cardboard, it resists at first and then just lets go at a certain point which creates kinks which are undesirable, so I had to bend it a little at a time until it was sufficiently bent that I could use tape to hold it in place on the outside of the silencer tubing, then I was able to mark where the holes need to be (round tube would be easier),

once I had drilled all the holes I used small bolts to attach it to the silencer tubing and make any adjustments that might be needed before messing up on the rivet process,

when I was happy with everything I wrapped fresh baffle material around the inner tubing, I used tape to hold it in place as it just wanted to fall straight back off again, then I slid the outer sleeve over it and into position, then the front ends could be riveted back together using the brass straps,

then the rear caps could be re-attached and also riveted back in place with the brass straps,

next step was to give both silencers an over all polishing, and when that was complete I taped up around the lettering and gave the TDM lettering a fresh 'brushed' finish,

now they are finished to my acceptable standard I wanted to fit them back on the bike, but the connecting clips on front of the link pipes broke  , now I have to make new ones

 

brass container of some sort, equal rings cut out and cleaned up

[attachment=o15814]

 

making good the link pipe area

[attachment=o15815]

 

cutting down to size

[attachment=o15816]

 

making brass straps, reassembly, basic polish up

[attachment=o15817]

 

before, after finishing

[attachment=o15818]