Hard starting, can't open choke

[inanecathode]

The jb weld had a good seal, but is only good until 600F. I tossed my stick welder a few years ago thinking "when am i ever going to weld again" and now have had 5 separate times in the past 6 months wishing i had a welder. I think i'm going to go buy a wire feed this weekend. Is it possible to get just the one muffler off without removing the entire exhaust?

Stick would probably blow right through it, its really thin steel.

You have to take the muffs off as one piece, and its a HUGE pain in the ass. The rear cylinder input pipe is the one that sticks.

While you're in there, you should replace the copper doughnuts and the fiber gasket going into the muffler box, you really really dont want to have to take that thing off again. You'd think it'd free up a bit from being off once, but trust me its not.

[Jay]

I was going to try and weld it while it was attached to the bike. There's one problem with that though. The hole is on the underside of the bike, and my jack won't jack up the bike because the pipes are the lowest part on the bike, and I'd rather not use them as a jack point. I'm trying to figure some sort of pulley system to the ceiling of the garage to lift it that way, but it's been cold, so I haven't gotten around to it yet.

[Rick G]

There is an ancient welding technique that is very handy for welding exhaust systems. Its called an acetylene / oxygen torch . A stick welder will massacre  the thin material used . As heavy as they are, you would think they were  made of stout stuff, but there very thin material . If you can weld with a torch , see if you can borrow one. Hint, any HVAC tech will have one in his truck, maybe you know one?

[Jay]

I figured a stick welder would blow right through, which was why I was leaning towards wire feed. I've only used the Oxygen/Acetylene torches before to cut... They would dice through my exhaust with quickness and ease. I'm unaware of a method to use this type of torch to weld, but I will look into it.

[vadasz1]

You want to make sure that you DO NOT use the cutting torch for welding.  It will have multiple orifices in the tip.  You WANT to use a welding torch, this has only ONE orifice in the tip.  This will produce just the right amount of heat to melt the solder wire without blowing throught the muffler.  BEWARE tho, you can still burn a hole through the muffler if you heat it up to long, but yI think you know that already.  ;)

[Rick G]

Just practice on two pieces of light weight  steel before you attempt  the project. You can get a small package of copper plated steel welding rod at ACE hardware, It has several sizes of rod .