17" reverse megaphone tips

deez · Post by **deez** » Tue Jan 05, 2010 2:11 am

well this is embarrassing but will share to keep it from happening to anyone else. so i have been riding my bike for a couple of months now as a daily rider with the shorty 17" reverse megs on. so i was riding one day when the exhaust got really loud! looked down and back to see my nice reverse meg bouncing down the street! made a quick stop and tried to stop cars from running it over multiple times with no luck. the clamp was not tight enough and caused the exhaust stay nut to back out! so now to the tips.

1. these megs come with only one cut in the pipe where you clamp it down. make sure to add another cut! ( a dremel with doubled up cutting blades does the trick with precision )
2. these megs also come with chrome muffler clamps that bottom out before really making the pipe tight. at least on my set up.
3. get some nice cobra clamps and you are in business.

hope this helps someone from making the lame mistake i had made.
-cheers
-deez

Vince Lupo · Post by **Vince Lupo** » Tue Jan 05, 2010 5:40 am

Don't feel so bad -- it's probably happened to more of us than we'd care to admit.

I had the same thing happen in 1987 while I was riding from Vancouver to Toronto. I was riding through Rogers Pass in the Rockies, and going through all the 'snow sheds'. I was riding my '81 CB900F with a Vance & Hines exhaust, and it was making this really great sound as the noise reverberated against the walls of the snow sheds. But, when I went through the final snow shed, the noise got really loud, and I looked down and my muffler was gone! And, I was 2000 miles from home! So, I pulled off to the side of the road, and proceeded to wander back through the snow shed, saying to myself 'Oh S**t, Oh S**t, Oh S**t', and trucks were whizzing by just inches from me. I was certain that I'd find my muffler as flat as a pancake. But, to my surprise, I found it on the shoulder, intact except for some minor scrapes. The V&H pipe used some stupid allen bolt to secure the muffler to the bike, and of course it was long gone. Luckily I had some rope, and lashed the muffler to the footpeg mounting bracket. It managed to hold for the rest of the way home. Needless to say, the V&H system was soon replaced with a stainless Supertrapp.

So yes, Cobra clamps and Loctite!

G-Man · Post by **G-Man** » Tue Jan 05, 2010 1:36 pm

I had a nice set of replica Dunstall Decibel mufflers on my Triumph Daytona (1967 vintage) where the baffles were held in with pop rivets. Needless to say that one of those ejected itself from the muffler. Had to stuff it down my jacket for the ride home.

My brother had an Ariel Arrow two-stroke where the mufflers were held in two places, a clamp around the pipe and a fancy bracket attached to the fender at the back. A favourite trick of these bikes was for the muffler to come undone at the front while still attached at the back. Muffler digs into road and proceeds to lift back wheel right off the road! By brother was not impressed but survived the ordeal.....

And then there was the day when I forgot to set the locking clips on my rear panniers. Not nice picking up you underwear from the middle of the road........

G

Vince Lupo · Post by **Vince Lupo** » Tue Jan 05, 2010 1:40 pm

Um, were they boxers or briefs????

deez · Post by **deez** » Thu Jan 07, 2010 6:54 pm

hahahaha.... great stories and thanks for sharing them. thinking back on the events its pretty funny. but all said and done it sucks having to buy new megs. thanks again for making a rookie not feel so bad.
-cheers
-deez

Spargett · Post by **Spargett** » Wed Jan 27, 2010 11:48 pm

Deez, sorry to hear brother. I've learned, "what can come loose, will come loose". With the amount of vibration on these bikes, it's only a matter of time with some things. Be glad those shorties are a bargain and that you didn't loose something like a repo from Classic Honda Restoration ; ) Thanks for sharing.

deez · Post by **deez** » Tue Mar 23, 2010 3:54 am

true that spargett. well i got a new tip about these shorty megs. i just took a ride on some mountain roads last weekend that had plenty of turns to test the ol bike out. when i leaned a left turn only to hear the dreaded scraping noise! we got to the top of the mountain and my buddy davomoto informed me it was the centerstand scraping. sure enough it was. so unless you get these megs up a bit higher while running a center stand its gonna rub on the ground on semi aggressive left turns. just a heads up to all of you running these things or those of you thinking about running these things. spargett you got a pm sir.
-cheers
-deez