Exhaust Muffler

One last instalment: I took the Fuel exhaust apart this afternoon (being a sad person with nowhere to go on a bank holiday). About 5 minutes with a 4mm drill and a rubber mallet had it looking like this:



... by which time I’d decided it needed more thorough attention, so another 5 minutes with the same drill and rubber mallet had the other end off as well:



More or less as I’d expected, the packing material was completely saturated by 13 years and 134,000 miles (or thereabouts) worth of carbon. It was well past it’s best:



The metal parts were really dirty, so I set about cleaning them in the garden with degreaser, scrubbing brushes, wire brushes and the hose, after about an hour and a half I decided that was enough (it was much cleaner, but far from perfect). I tapped out the shallow dent with a panel beating dolly, but it left a scratch, so moved the ‘Fuel’ badge to cover it and riveted it back into place.

I thought about ordering the replacement packing material from Fuel during my tea break, it costs £16:

https://www.fuelexhausts.com/accesso...king-materials

... which is reasonable, but then concluded I’d be very unlikely to re-fit it to the K6 anyway (because I quite like the standard set up, which is acceptably quiet). The sensible thing to do then was to re-rivet the front end of the muffler and loosely re-assemble the back end so that if I ever decided to use it I could fit the packing material and have the end riveted on in perhaps 20 minutes work:



Having taped on the loose trim part and given the whole thing a spray with WD40 I’ve stored the Fuel exhaust away in the SV650 spares box in the garage loft.

I suspect this will be the end of the muffler story, I’m happy with the standard item re-fitted to my quiet K6 and I don’t think I’ll use the Fuel one again, but I could resurrect it for £16 and 20 minutes work if I ever needed to.



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[glang]

Great thanks, it looks pretty much as we suspected, quite basic, and yes I cant see that wadding was doing very much. However even with new wadding (probably get the same stuff cheaper off ebay...) I cant see it being much quieter although possibly it would be even lighter! Still I'll probably have a go at mine although its done considerably less miles than yours and see if I can get down to the noise level I want, cheers

Originally Posted by glang

Great thanks, it looks pretty much as we suspected, quite basic, and yes I cant see that wadding was doing very much. However even with new wadding (probably get the same stuff cheaper off ebay...) I cant see it being much quieter although possibly it would be even lighter! Still I'll probably have a go at mine although its done considerably less miles than yours and see if I can get down to the noise level I want, cheers

As expected, it was really easy to get apart. The original rivets were a little tough, I had to use De Walt bits, so it might be worth making sure you have a good 4mm bit before you start. The rest was just brute force and ignorance.
That is not a bad idea about looking on eBay for some packing material with the right dimensions. I suppose if I picked up some cheaply I might finish rebuilding it and have it on the shelf in case I (or someone else) ever needed it.


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[DarrenSV650S]

-10 cool points though

Originally Posted by glang

Great thanks, it looks pretty much as we suspected, quite basic, and yes I cant see that wadding was doing very much. However even with new wadding (probably get the same stuff cheaper off ebay...) I cant see it being much quieter although possibly it would be even lighter! Still I'll probably have a go at mine although its done considerably less miles than yours and see if I can get down to the noise level I want, cheers

... one more tip: if you are going to re-pack the wadding then take the muffler apart from the front joint (where the exhaust comes in from the motor) rather than the rear one. The pipe that runs down the middle of the muffler is welded to that end, so it will be easier to remove it (with the old wadding) and wrap the new stuff round it before re-inserting into the can and replacing the 6 rivets.
If you do it the other way (by taking the end can off - which sort of looks like the obvious way) then the job would still be possible, but you would have to push the new wadding all the way into the tube.

Originally Posted by DarrenSV650S

-10 cool points though

... minus 10 cool points? Why would that be? I thought this might be a helpful article.

[DarrenSV650S]

Loud cans are cooler

Originally Posted by DarrenSV650S

Loud cans are cooler

We will have to disagree about that one.


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An addendum: my K6 runs so much better with the standard muffler re-fitted. It now ticks over from cold (with the Fuel muffler I had to warm it to 25C before it would settle down).


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[glang]

Yes I think Mr Suzuki knows what he's doing - well he's been at it long enough.....