Lately I've been working on the heat shroud for the exhaust. I want to sandwich the muffler as much as possible in the heat shroud and direct the heat out to the stock Avenger side vent. I started with some cardboard templates and after a lot of trial and error, I finally cut out the metal shroud and began to bend it. I made as many of the side plates into the bottom plate as possible so that I could just bend them into place instead of welding them. I still have three pieces to weld in to complete the sides.
I don't have a brake but I was able to use a couple of pieces of steel and a hammer to get the sides into place. This is the bottom piece:
This is the bottom piece on the right with the top to the left. You flip the top piece over to the right and it will fit onto the bottom piece and completely enclose it:
I have worked on the exhaust some this past weekend and like everything else on this project, I made it more complicated than it had to be. I am using a stock Briggs muffler on the Bandolero motor mainly to help keep the sound levels down since my wife will be driving it most of the time. I shortened the stock pipe coming out of the muffler and then had to use some compound bends to get the pipe routed back up to a point where it could come out in the stock Avenger exhaust location. I was tempted to just make another screen in the side of the engine bay with a relocated hole but this way, I can still use the stock screen. It was time consuming to tack each piece together and get it exiting the screen in the correct location.
I took the stock Avenger exhaust tip and shortened the pipe that it is attached to so that I could keep the stock flare. I then made a somewhat round flare on the new muffler extension to mate up. The only thing left is to weld some attachment points for the springs that will hold the exhaust tip on and then I will clean everything up and paint it.
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