I was riding the other day and all of a sudden my lower SEII slip-on had an awful rattle. I was 50 miles from home and nursed the bike home. It is a 2001 Dyna Wide Glide with those slip-ons. I took the pipe off and the baffle fell out. The poprivit had come loose and rattled in the pipe, ironicly it stayed in for the remainder of ride. Anyway, my question is the glass pack that was in the piping was almost burned fully away. Can I put the baffle back in as is, or should i purchase the glass pack fiber because of the engine's back pressure needs.
Thanks in advance for your help...
I looked throughout the exhast postings and could not find any questions like this one.

 

You can buy new packing for pretty cheap. Try a offroad/dirtbike parts store. You can use thin wire to wrap around the new packing to hold it in place when you slide it back in the pipe.

 

May not sound as good without the glass. But many people mod their exhaust that way.

 

wouldnt thin wire compress the pack permenantly. compared to something like scotchtape that will burn off and let the pack expand?

 

It'll prevent the glass from getting blown all the way back and last longer.

 

You're luck to still have the baffle. I would put it back in and see how it sounds and runs. You can always pull them and wrap with glass. Whether you use wire or some kind of tape to hold the material in when you install it, the glass will get blown out with use. So if you think it's too quiet just wait a while.
I run an older set of SEII's and they don't have any packing in them. Maybe they used to, but I got them from a member here and that's how they came.

 

I run my SE-II with BC baffles and no packing. Not excessively loud, but you definitely hear them when you roll the throttle pretty good. Sounds real good rolling on the highway.

 

Try it without the packing. Then with packing, see if you notice a diff. The packing will take some of the metal baffle harshness out of the sound. And give a little more back pressure.
You can also use steel wool to replace the fiberglass. I would use coarse # 3 or #4. Unwrap the pad then wrap the steel wool where the fiberglass was missing.

 

If you like the way it sounds without the fiberglass packing, you can leave it off. It wont hurt anything at all. I had se mufflers on a sportster and I took the fiberglass off of the baffles so I could get more sound and never had any problems.