OE Muffler?

[ButchW]

OK.. if the muffler is soooo "OE".. how come it doesn't slip right on? I can't count how many of these stock mufflers I've put on and none of them have ever fit correctly. Shoe horn this, push that.. where's my rubber hammer?! Why, why is it so hard to make parts that fit correctly? Especially something like this?

Ok.. that's today's vent. I feel better.

[Marc]

Back in the day (`80s/`90s) my shop used German Leistritz exclusively, and they always fit without any drama - if there was a little misalignment on the preheat tube flange it could be attributed to shipping damage, everything else was fine as a a rule.
From time to time we'd have a customer who furnished their own Brazilian-made muffler, and I can't recall a single one that didn't require some tweaking (up to and including torch work) to install. As Gene Berg warned many years ago, the cheap crap inevitably drives the good stuff off the market as cheapskate VW owners spend less and less of their money on the latter. As production volumes go down, prices go up and even more decide to "settle" for the cheaper parts...look at piston & cylinder sets as another example - fortunately the Chinese seem to be doing a fairly good job making those.

[ButchW]

Back in the day (`80s/`90s) my shop used German Leistritz exclusively, and they always fit without any drama - if there was a little misalignment on the preheat tube flange it could be attributed to shipping damage, everything else was fine as a a rule.
From time to time we'd have a customer who furnished their own Brazilian-made muffler, and I can't recall a single one that didn't require some tweaking (up to and including torch work) to install. As Gene Berg warned many years ago, the cheap crap inevitably drives the good stuff off the market as cheapskate VW owners spend less and less of their money on the latter. As production volumes go down, prices go up and even more decide to "settle" for the cheaper parts...look at piston & cylinder sets as another example - fortunately the Chinese seem to be doing a fairly good job making those.

And yes.. I'll have to admit I'm guilty of not buying "top quality" stuff all the time. Amazing how much even the Brazilian parts have gone up.. Trying to put myself together on a budget does come back and bite me at times.

[Marc]

You're not alone there, I was raised to be obsessively frugal (in other words, I'm a cheapskate). When the shop's reputation was on the line I always gave the best parts preference. For customers who couldn't afford those, we'd sometimes find used stuff or OEM Mexican. In those days even the VW dealers were offering them - same part number with a "000" suffix, usually around half the cost of German. When cheaper parts came along I'd often use them in my personal cars just to see if they might be safe to offer to my customers (not surprisingly, few were). Now there are no OEM parts left other than NOS so you're pretty much playing guinea pig with everything you buy.

[SCOTTRODS]

There can be slight differences simply due to the Casting of the heads and such, but none should be so significant you can't put a muffler on without too much tweaking.... The heat riser tubes get distorted on the intake a lot and will sometimes need some help, but I'm kinda like Marc on this... I always tried to use German Mufflers... and paid dearly for it on the last couple....

[goober]

"...none of them have ever fit correctly."

Boy are you right. I bought my first new VW in 1970. If I remember correctly, the first muffler I replaced fit quite well. After that my muffler experience took a nose dive. Everyone I've ever known, who's replaced their muffler, has had to do the same installation dance ever since.

You hope the two main flanges are square enough and lay flat enough when you fit them to the head. Only having SP's, I've always kept my fingers crossed when trying to align and attach my heat-risers flanges. You pray the muffler's been welded in a proper jig so the heat-exchanger tubes will actually line up adequately enough, straight enough, to fit and seal with marginal clamps and donuts. And those heat transfer boxes around the exhaust pipe (not sure what they're called) that connect the fresh air hoses to the heat-exchanger......yikes. You try and line them up with the connecting band and exchanger then are forced to accept wherever the top hole points in relation to the breast-plate hole. I always have to butcher the breast-plate hole. And it's guaranteed, the next mufflers box hole won't line up with the existing breasts-plate hole.

From hardware that's too soft to a twisted muffler that refuses to fit, it can be a challenge. My brother just install a $200 ceramic coated muffler on his Bug and had to do the usual dance. Ever try and braze a ceramic coated muffler? It's not beautifully ceramic coated anymore.

I suppose we should be grateful we can still buy parts for our Bugs. I just don't understand why it's so hard to make a straight part when a bent part takes just as much work.