New muffler installed, now nasty vibration

[edwx]

Yesterday I had a new muffler installed. They cut out the old muffler, and installed a new muffler and pipe upstream, and used a donut and clamp upstream, and welded the muffler to the remaining tail pipe downstream. When I drove it to work on the interstate, after about 5 minutes I felt, and heard a nasty vibration coming from the left rear of the vehicle. Seems like it was coming from the exhaust area, and was worse when I pushed down on the accelerator. While I was stopped at the light, I put it in park, and no vibration. I put it in drive, and with my foot on the brake and the vehicle stopped, I pressed the accelerator, and it made the noise. Weird. This vibration wasn't there before the work was done and definitely started right after the work was done, the first time I drove the vehicle. I am bringing it back to the mechanic tomorrow am. Any thoughts as to what it might be? Doesn't seem to do it much at lower speeds, but really does it a lot at 60+ mph. Maybe they didn't hang the pipes quite right??? and they are vibrating against something. Really frustrating, because I just put new tires on it, then I swapped a front left bearing, now the muffler had a hole, so I just let my mechanic fix it, because I didn't want to mess with it......and now this. Gimme a break, I'm trying to do the right thing.

 

[Explorer_PL]

I replaced the cats on my v8 and when I put the car in R, the engine shifts and one cat is touching the frame causing nasty drone and vibration. When in forward gears, it's ok.

Get under and see if any part of the exhaust is close to any part of the frame or spare tire.
Check if they used rubber hangers not just steel.

 

[edwx]

Good suggestion. I will. When this happened yesterday, I pulled into the Target parking lot, and got down and checked it out. I wobbled the exhaust pipe a little to see if it was hitting anything, and it would hit the plastic spare tire protector a little bit, but basically seemed ok. But I really didn't take a good look at it yet. First I want to bring it back to the mechanic before I start spending too much time on it myself. If I can get him to go for a 5 minute ride with me, he'll know exactly what I'm talking about.

update: got the mechanic to go for a ride with me, and he heard/felt the vibration. So he's going to work on it asap, possibly later today. To be continued.....

 

[Flag Gibby]

I cannot stand those exhaust clamps, they never stay in place after you get everything set up right on the exhaust tubing so nothing rubs or touches. After my first experience with them, I have always done partial welds with the clamps to get everything to stay. The first time I put a cat back on a system using only the clamps the tubing vibrated out of alignment in the first 5 miles onto a rear CV joint and rubbed a hole in the tubing that I had to patch. Ever since then I have always spot welded the seams in a couple of spots along with the clamps. I suspect that the vibration is from the tubing contacting the rear frame above the swing arm.

 

[edwx]

Thanks for the heads up about the muffler clamps. Although tempted many times, I'm hesitant to make suggestions to a mechanic on how to possibly fix a problem. We went for the ride, and he heard the same thing I did, so I'll let him do his thing in an attempt to make it right. It's amazing, that every time I let someone else touch my truck, they do something wrong. It doesn't matter who it is....dealer, tire shop, alignment shop, or joe blow mechanic, they always screw something up. That's why I do everything I can, myself.

 

[edwx]

The tech made an adjustment, and so far so good. If I remember correctly, he said that the pipe was contacting a CV joint, because he saw some shiny rub marks. The guy was pretty good, because he asked me to call him when I got to work, either way, to let him know how it went. Hopefully that will be all for a while. New tires, alignment, front hub, and muffler. $1000 well spent.......talk about a whisper quiet vehicle now. Thanks. Ed