Well the time came to get the exhaust done. I found some really cool 12″ mufflers at Dime City Cycles online as well as a TC Bros DIY builder kit. The builder kit came with an assortment of bends and straights to get the job done right. And the high flow short mufflers look great and will sound amazing too.
I started by mounting the mufflers. If you don’t know where you want to end up how can you get there, I always say. I cut a 7/8″ hole in the frame. Then I cut down a 1.5″ length of 7/8″ solid round stock and drilled and tapped it. Each muffler came with it’s own mounting bracket. Since I wanted both mufflers on the same side I used one of the brackets to mount both mufflers. This allowed me to offset the mufflers with ease. After drilling a hole in the bracket between the mufflers I mounted my slug to the mufflers. Then I inserted the slug into the frame. This allowed me to make sure the mufflers were where I needed them to be. I tack welded the slug to the frame, then I removed the mufflers and final welded it in.
Now that I knew where I wanted to end up time to cut the bends in order to get there. I decided to set the mufflers on the right side of the bike because Joe, the customer, had mentioned he wanted to put a leather saddle bag on one side of the bike. So I thought I’d make some room for him. The exhaust kit from TC Bros came with everything I needed. I ran the left exhaust pipe under the frame just before the rear tire. I chose to go under the frame to avoid running into the chain. The left pipe used two 90 degree bends to get to the muffler. The right side pipe used a “U” bend cut in half and spun 180 degrees, which gives it a cool “S” look. Joe was having problems with the old exhaust scraping on turns. Well that problem is gone and the new exhaust makes room for a saddle bag, as well as has a custom clean look.