Build 21. Exhaust Collector

Ahh the infamous exhaust collector, I've read a few blogs about installing this and people seemed to have a bit of trouble with the springs and getting them to fit over the brackets on the pipes.

I too started off the same, mainly because I was following the blogs and thinking that there is no other way to do it. The first thing I did was to widen the metal brackets, so as to get as much of the bracket to fit nicely around the cat brackets. Once this was done, I used two cable ties to compress the spring as much as possible to help with the fitting.

I then offered up the collector to the primaries (which were still loose enough to move about) and slid the collector into the primaries ready to hook over the springs and brackets. After about half an hour of faffing, it was not going to fit and I really didn't want to grab pliers or anything and force it. So I brainstormed with my wife on it and she suggested just pushing on set of the metal hooked ends down into the spring. Viola! easy after that little hack, in fact a 5 minute job (See second set of pictures with red background)

You will also need the lambda sensor for the cat which was I think was in a larger white "AP Motorparts" box for me and inside an "MG Rover" box.

Once the spring was assembled as above, tuck the pins on one side inside the spring, as shown below:

You can now slip this over the brackets easily, and then pull the pins back out to hook them around the spring and once in place you can use a Stanley knife to cut the cable ties and the collector will be securely in place. After this you can screw the lambda sensor into the collector ready for the wiring to be secured.

To secure the wiring, you simply have to take 3 of the rivet tie connectors (from the IVA/Trim package) and then rivet them along the driver footwell front. There are blogs that mention using 3M adhesive to avoid drilling, but this doesn't seem like a permanent fix to me, so other than damaging the foil tape a little, it was easy enough to simply rivet the tie mounts in place (I used a 4mm drill bit and a stronger 4mm rivet as the 3 mm wasn't tight enough) One of mine refused to pull all the way so I had to snip it and use a hammer and pin punch to pop it back through, it was still very secure though! I also chose to undo the ties that the factory put in place and re tie it to avoid loose cables.

I'll also probably add some more aluminium foil on top to protect the bits of foil that got damaged during the process.

Fitting the spring