Exhaust hanger modification R50 Cooper

My mate Tony popped round this afternoon complaining that his exhaust was rattling about like a Junkie desperately needing a hit. He got new hangers fitted about 6 weeks ago and they have failed already. I had a quick think about a permanent solution and came up an idea....

My idea was to weld a tube in to the old hangers and fit a bush for the hooks on the cage to pick up on. After a quick rummage about my garage I found suitable bushes but never had any steel tubing so I took a trip to my local B&Q store in hope of buying some tubing that would fit inside the bracket. B&Q never had anything suitable plus the table legs were aluminium so that was no good. Driving back home I decided to call in to my local council recycling centre and as luck would have it a guy was dumping the remains of his old trampoline in the metal skip. I managed to get a trampoline leg off him and the fit was near perfect lol!

First up I removed the remains of the rubber inserts to reveal the metal support. I cut the tubing to size and welded it within the bracket then press fitted the bushes. After that I splatted it with some paint to help protect it from the elements and was left with this

http://i166.photobucket.com/albums/u...ps4loa7oxc.jpg

Its not 100% pretty but considering it was quickly mashed together I think its turned out pretty well. Once fitted back under the car it looks like this

http://i166.photobucket.com/albums/u...pszwugi2k5.jpg

While under the car I also noticed that his heat shield was also rotten where it attached to the car and was also sitting on top of the exhaust pipe so a bracket was quickly fashioned up and painted to give it a bit of protection and hopefully this will slow down the metal reaction between the steel and aluminium

http://i166.photobucket.com/albums/u...pswoptbmxp.jpg

http://i166.photobucket.com/albums/u...psqgajy2nb.jpg

Once everything was bolted back up the exhaust is now rattle free and solid so hopefully this will last a long time :chicken: