…the tail, tail pipes are rust-yyyy.

Everything that I have seen and heard about changing rusty pea-shooters makes it sound like a major pain. So, why not give it a go. What’s the worst that could happen. I ordered a cheapo Empi replacement set, hoping for the best.

The clamps came off easy after I gave them the juice over the last couple of days.

I alternated between fire and penetrating oil multiple times over the course of two days, then further mangled the pipes with a pipe wrench and hammer.

Still no dice. So today, I put it up on ramps for easier access.

After a few more rounds of heat and juice today, they still wouldn’t budge. The smoke coming out of the exhaust in the picture above is a nice touch… The car wasn’t running, that was red hot exhaust gunk.

I’ve been mangling the fixed pipes coming out of the exhaust and knew I would only continue to make it worse. So, the decision was made for me.

Turns out I don’t have chisels, so the best I could find was a nail punch set and standard screw driver. At least I do have safety glasses. The reciprocating saw made quick and easy work of the pipes and I finished pulling the guts out with channel locks.

Same story on the passenger side.

Using the available tools I had, I further mangled the exhaust, while trying to get the rest of the old pea-shooter out. I ended up driving a hole through the side of it as a nail head setter went off course. That exhaust is pretty flimsy, rusty stuff at this point.

I decided to leave the passenger side alone while I figure out what to do next.

Honestly, it sounds pretty good as it is. Maybe I’ll just put some tips on it and send it down the road.

While I was at it, I took the door handles off and lubed up their internals, along with the door latch mechanism. It has been getting increasingly hard to open the doors. Hopefully, that fixed them up.