lexart

My last winter project before the car comes out from its winter hibernation is to repair my oval exhaust tips. The car is at ROW MO30 height and the PO had apparently few too many close ’meetings’ with the speed bumps. The tips are scraped on the bottoms and as you can see from the pics, there are sizable dents on the on the lower left quadrant on the oval. Every time I look at the back of the car, I *see* the dents.

Any recommendations on how and where to repair these tips?

<img src="http://members.rennlist.com/amp993c2/mini-Bent%20Ovals%20Side.jpg" alt=" - " />

<img src="http://members.rennlist.com/amp993c2/mini-Bent%20Ovals%20Top.jpg" alt=" - " />

Mike J

You should be able to hammer it back into shape. If you don't want to try it yourself then take it to a good body shop...they usually are very good with metal forming. The steel on the tips is fairly thick so it takes some pressure to reform them...you might need to make a temporary die or find someone who has them. Maybe a metal working shop?

After that is done polish them up with a metal polishing wheel and some fine polishing compound. When I did mine they came out mirror like!

cmoss

I see why you "see" those dents. If those were my dents they'd be looking bigger every day. I had a door ding that over time seemed to grow to emcompass the entire passenger side door... Yup--got to be fixed before summer. Pound them and polish I suppose... Maybe even take them to a body shop for the pounding??
Cheers,
Chris

lexart

</font><blockquote><font size="1" face="Verdana,Tahoma,Helvetica">quote:</font><hr /><font size="2" face="Verdana,Tahoma,Helvetica">Originally posted by Silver Bullet:
<strong>Try the body shop idea.</strong></font><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="Verdana,Tahoma,Helvetica">Well, I did! Went to my local body shop and showed them my bent oval tips. The owner called in this older body man in and he said, 'sure, give me a few minutes'. Him and another helper banged the dents out in about 10 minutes. Is it perfect, no. Presentable, yes! And the best part, they didn’t charge me a penny.

I'll sand out the scratches with my Porter Cable RO polisher/sander. Polish'dem up and post the pics when I'm done.

Thanks everyone for the body shop tip!

Brgds,

Allen

</font><blockquote><font size="1" face="Verdana,Tahoma,Helvetica">quote:</font><hr /><font size="2" face="Verdana,Tahoma,Helvetica">Originally posted by Silver Bullet:
<strong>Isn't it two pieces? The outer shell and an insert? </strong></font><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="Verdana,Tahoma,Helvetica">It is not two pieces. Each tip is constructed from two seperate pieces, but the pieces are welded together at the interior part of the large oval chrome part.

dr kenneth e garchow

if you have the factory large SS oval tips, they are chrome plated stainless. if you sand to remove the scratches you will go through the thin layer of chrome. then the tips will show two different colors

this is what happened to mine, so i had them decromed an polished the bare stainless. now they are perfect and can be touched up as needed.

also while i had them off i shortened them 1/4 inch so they dont stick out so far.

dr kenneth e garchow

if you have the factory large SS oval tips, they are chrome plated stainless. if you sand to remove the scratches you will go through the thin layer of chrome. then the tips will show two different colors

this is what happened to mine, so i had them decromed an polished the bare stainless. now they are perfect and can be touched up as needed.

also while i had them off i shortened them 1/4 inch so they dont stick out so far.

lexart

</font><blockquote><font size="1" face="Verdana,Tahoma,Helvetica">quote:</font><hr /><font size="2" face="Verdana,Tahoma,Helvetica">Originally posted by dr kenneth e garchow:
<strong>if you have the factory large SS oval tips, they are chrome plated stainless. if you sand to remove the scratches you will go through the thin layer of chrome. then the tips will show two different colors

this is what happened to mine, so i had them decromed an polished the bare stainless. now they are perfect and can be touched up as needed.
</strong></font><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="Verdana,Tahoma,Helvetica">Thank you for this information! Indeed, I was about to start sanding the scratches out of the bottom of my SS oval tips. Now I’ll have to re-think my approach . . . Let us know how the decrome process was accomplished?

Brgds,

lexart

Just finished cleaning and polishing my repaired oval tips. They came out pretty well. Not perfect but certainly presentable

<img src="http://members.rennlist.com/amp993c2/mini-DSC00105.JPG" alt=" - " />

<img src="http://members.rennlist.com/amp993c2/mini-DSC00102.JPG" alt=" - " />

<img src="http://members.rennlist.com/amp993c2/mini-DSC00101.JPG" alt=" - " />

Brgds,