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I have a safety question regarding a sheared exhaust pipe repair I performed on my 2002 Toyota Camry. I did the following:

-Cut up a steel can and fit it inside the two sheared ends of exhaust pipe.

-Used two stainless steel hose clamps to push the two pieces of pipe back together

-Applied Thermosteel 2400F Coldweld to cleaned up surface on the break, creating a seal. Then cured the putty.

Is there anything that I should be concerned with in terms of safety? Could there be any potential problems with carbon monoxide feeding into the cabin?

Thanks!

Pic of repair, pre application of Thermosteel

(the repair, pre thermosteel application)

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  • Welcome to Motor Vehicle Maintenance & Repair! While I don't see any inherent problems with your fix (great field expedient means, by the way), I think answers to this question are going to be fraught with a LOT of opinion. Really, as long as it's sealed up, you won't have any leaks of CO or CO2 into the cabin.
    – Pᴀᴜʟsᴛᴇʀ2 ♦
    Aug 23, 2017 at 23:27
  • It's a reasonable question, but rather hopeful that you could get a meaningful answer without knowing how well it is now sealed, and how easy/difficult it would be for exhaust gasses to enter the cabin area. Your best bet is to keep moving; there won't be much getting inside with a steady stream of clearing air around the patch while you are in motion.
    – SteveRacer
    Aug 24, 2017 at 1:30
  • I doubt those hose clamps will hold for long. Get some proper exhaust clamps
    – agentp
    Aug 24, 2017 at 14:36
  • Thanks for the replies! Cabin seems well sealed. It's quiet and watertight. I'm fairly confident in the seal I created (for now). It makes sense that clearing air would solve any issues of transference from a leak to the cabin. I'll assume I'm basically covered in that regard. I didn't know exhaust clamps were a thing! Thanks for the suggestion. Do any of you know if there could be an issue of exhaust feeding back through the exhaust pipes? Say if the can inside the pipesomehow got twisted inside?
    – Pernicious
    Aug 25, 2017 at 0:25
  • Excessive back pressure can be an issue.
    – Ben
    Aug 25, 2017 at 2:28

1 Answer 1

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There are 2 main concerns with this type of repair:

  1. Will your repair materials (can, clamps and adhesive) withstand the heat of the exhaust system? I'm dealing with a similar exhaust repair right now. The epoxy and silicone I used, although both rated for high heat, couldn't handle the exhaust's heat. They cracked and peeled off and my pipe fell off somewhere.
  2. Will your repair handle the mechanical stress of the exhaust system? We all think of the exhaust system as deadening sound, but there's more to it. Vibration, lots of it. When that pipe fell off, I had a wide open pipe from just before the catalytic converter and that caused a wicked vibration felt through the entire car when the engine was under any kind of load and throttle. Will your (flimsy) clamps hold? Maybe for a few days, maybe for a month, not much longer than that.

Here's the proper (and inexpensive) way to fix this:

  1. Get proper exhaust band clamps (~$14 at the parts store)
  2. Get a proper piece of exhaust pipe ($5-$10)
  3. Cut off that flange so you have 2 pieces of flat straight pipe to fit your pipe onto (use an angle grinder with a metal cutting disc, 1/8" thickness)
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