A couple of weeks ago on a trip I lost the rear muffler. I got a new one and an axle pipe from FCP. When I went to put it on, I realized that the front muffler was also rusted to hell, ad the pipes weren't coming apart from either rust or welding.

I ordered the front muffler, and today I put it all together.

First obstacle was that the pipe of the front muffler was the same size as the converter. Turned out there was a piece of pipe larger than the converter pipe welded on. I had to remove the converter so that I could get it off with the angle grinder.

Second obstacle was the rear muffler orientation. The replacement muffler is different from the old one in that it has a heat shield welded on. Also, there is no indication as to how it needs to be oriented. I found a couple of mentions of this issue here, but neither thread had an answer, only the question.

I could not refer to the old muffler, since metal hounds swiped it from my driveway while I was waiting for the second one. First, I decided that the tube off to one side was the inlet, as it fit over the axle pipe and the other side didn't. I then found the attached picture, which shows that the inlet goes to the driver's side of the car.

Once I figured out where the inlet goes, I had a problem with the hanger. It refused to fit over the heat shield, and placing it next to the heatshield where it fit easily put it too far from the rubber insulators. Looking at it this-a-way and that-a-way, I figured out that the hanger hoop is big enough to go over the heatshield, but only if it closely matches the curve. It had a few little waves in it. Careful matching of the curvature let me close the hoop and start threading the nut.

After that, all I had to do was to tighten the nuts and take a test drive.