Post by ballvo on Oct 4, 2012 9:20:56 GMT -5
This repair isn't triple-specific but I'm guessing would work on any baffle that wasn't damaged too severely. I'm not claiming to be the first to do this, but I documented it in photos so I thought I'd share...
My son lost the baffle out of one of the stock pipes on his GT500 the other night. I sent him back the next morning to look for it. Luckily, he found it - not so lucky, it had been driven over and crushed.
I checked ebay and some joker wants $50 + 30 S&H for a rusty old, cracked baffle in worse condition than my sons (except it isn't squashed
).
So I started thinking about a repair job. First, I cut it in two pieces a bit away from the worst of the crushed section, after marking it for reassembly.
Using my bench vise, a couple of punches and a bodywork hammer I was able to open up one of the cut ends to the point where I could get a wooden dowel inside.
Then I just hammered the dowel into the tube, making it generally round. On a small anvil I then pounded away at the baffle with the nearly snug dowel inside to remove any resudual dents.
The second piece was a bit more involved - it required the tapered end of a cold chisel to start opening it up and whacking out dents at and between the perforated holes with a punch held through a hole on the opposite side of the baffle.
On this one I used a tapered dowel of smaller diameter to finally get the thing opened up enough to fit the snug fitting dowel, which I used to finish it off.
There were also a few stress cracks at some of the punched holes that needed repair.
I got a pair of magnets aligned and clamped to a table, then lined up the two pieces for welding. It took a few trips to the grinder to get the two cut ends to mate properly. Tacked it together, then finished it off with the welder.
Back to visit the grinder and, voila, it's ready to go back in service. Just have to do a small repair on the pipe itself at the failure point where the baffle slips in.
My son lost the baffle out of one of the stock pipes on his GT500 the other night. I sent him back the next morning to look for it. Luckily, he found it - not so lucky, it had been driven over and crushed.
I checked ebay and some joker wants $50 + 30 S&H for a rusty old, cracked baffle in worse condition than my sons (except it isn't squashed
). So I started thinking about a repair job. First, I cut it in two pieces a bit away from the worst of the crushed section, after marking it for reassembly.
Using my bench vise, a couple of punches and a bodywork hammer I was able to open up one of the cut ends to the point where I could get a wooden dowel inside.
Then I just hammered the dowel into the tube, making it generally round. On a small anvil I then pounded away at the baffle with the nearly snug dowel inside to remove any resudual dents.
The second piece was a bit more involved - it required the tapered end of a cold chisel to start opening it up and whacking out dents at and between the perforated holes with a punch held through a hole on the opposite side of the baffle.
On this one I used a tapered dowel of smaller diameter to finally get the thing opened up enough to fit the snug fitting dowel, which I used to finish it off.
There were also a few stress cracks at some of the punched holes that needed repair.
I got a pair of magnets aligned and clamped to a table, then lined up the two pieces for welding. It took a few trips to the grinder to get the two cut ends to mate properly. Tacked it together, then finished it off with the welder.
Back to visit the grinder and, voila, it's ready to go back in service. Just have to do a small repair on the pipe itself at the failure point where the baffle slips in.
