Hello. Several months ago the exhaust system on my '93 245 literally started falling apart. I had to quit driving the car a week ago when the inlet connection to the last muffler let go and the pipe started dragging the ground. I bought the turbo exhaust parts from FCP Groton, and the replacement process generally went well until I started the car before tightening everything up and found that there was a major leak at the flange connection at the inlet of the catalytic converter. This car was from Boston originally, and the nuts holding the flange together aren't even distinguishable as separate parts anymore.

I see 4 options:

1. Bite the bullet and replace the downpipe and catalytic converter.

2. Cut the horizontal part of the downpart just before the cat flange, find a used downpipe, cut the same length off, and splice in this piece with a new cat.

3. Cut and replace the cat flange bolts.

4. Give up and take the car to a muffler shop.

Option 3 sounds the most appealing, but armed with only a hacksaw I'm not sure if I can do it or not. Even if I can cut through, I'm not sure I'll be able to remove the remains of the bolts. My experience with repair shops of any kind here in Atlanta is that they usually don't do a particularly good job and often break something else in the process.

If anyone has suggestions or advice I'd love to hear it. Thanks,

Eric
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Eric