Original noisy exhaust

New Exhaust

You want to make sure the engine is cool when you do this because you exhaust system can get quite hot.

Take off the rear bumper and the rear engine tin. Once you have that completed follow the exhaust pipes back to where they connect on the motor. There could be up to six connection points, though mine only had four hooked up. Take all the bolts out and put them into a safe place. I use a magnetic mechanics bowl just for this purpose. Now pull straight backwards on the exhaust and it should slide off. All the carbon and such coming from your motor may have it locked on there tight, but a couple good yanks should allow it to come right off. This is what it should look like once your exhaust is off.

Rear view of motor without exhaust

My original exhaust was all one piece, but my new exhaust was two pieces, headers and a muffler. If you have a single piece you are almost done, if you have two pieces pick up the headers and slide them on where you just took the old exhaust from and put the bolts in. If you ordered a kit you should have some new gaskets, don't forget to put those on. It helps seal the exhaust and prevent leaks. Here is a shot of the newly installed headers.

New headers installed

Now the final item to complete the new exhaust is the muffler. Slap on the gasket and bolt it up to the headers.

New exhaust

Congrats, you have new exhaust! Just bolt up the tin, replace the bumper, and put away your tools and you will have successfully changed you own exhaust.

Tools I used:
17mm wrench
13mm wrench

Now before we start it is very important that you disconnect the battery. Also make sure the VW is out of gear with the emergency brake on and the key off or out of the vehicle altogether. These precautions will help to ensure your safety while working on the vehicle. It is entirely possible to start the vehicle while you are underneath it and I am sure your ribcage would appreciate not getting highly compressed today.

First let's roll under the dub and take a gander at what we are going to be removing. Put down your drop cloth right in front of the rear passenger wheel. Slide your head under there and look up and maybe a little to the rear of the car. You should see something resembling the following.

There should be several wires sticking out of the solenoid. The top wire comes off your ignition switch which sends the signal to power the starter. The large wire with the bolt on it goes to the positive battery post, and the small wire on the bottom is the ground wire. There should be one more wire on the right heading off the solenoid to the starter.

The top starter bolt is a dual purpose bolt. Not only does it hold the starter to the transmission, it also holds the engine to the transmission. So let's roll out from under the dub and head back to the engine compartment. I did not take a picture of this part because it has to be done by feel and if you are going to wrench on an aircooled VW you need to be able to feel it out. Squat down behind the motor with you 17mm wrench and reach around the right side (passenger side) of the motor. Feel around in the lower region and you will eventually encounter a bolt with a nut on it. Stick the open end of your wrench on the nut and loosen it up. This nut may be difficult to move, as it should be as it holds your motor in your machine. I personally recommend a good set of ratcheting wrenches to help speed up the removal of nuts and bolts in hard to reach or see areas.

Okey dokey, that side is all done. Poke yourself back under the dub. Take your 13mm wrench with you and take the nut off the solenoid. When the wires are off stick the nut back on for safe storage. The ignition and ground wires need to be unattached as well, they may be push on, or held on by a nut. The wire from the solenoid to the starter can remain.

Pull your 17mm wrench back out and remove the bottom nut from the starter. You starter is now loose. You should probably use two hands to pull the starter out as it has some heft to it. Grasp the starter and pull it straight back, be careful not to drop it. Work it through the hoses and all the miscellaneous items until it is safely on the ground.

Your starter may be greasy as mine was, after a little cleanup you should have something looking like...

Congratulations, your starter is now out!

First off, this is the entirety of the fluid that came out...notice something missing...like most of the fluid that should be there?

After rolling out from under the bus with the drain plug in hand I found this nice big chunk of metal stuck to the magnetized plug surrounded by metal shavings...another bad sign.

If you find this in your transmission you might want to think about looking around for a new one, soon. That said, I did make it almost 500 miles a couple weekends after finding this.

Cheers

I took pictures of almost every car there. You can view the full gallery by clicking any image below.

A few pictures to drool over

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