Just got a pair a slip on cycle shack exhaust, and figured this would be pretty easy. I've put a few slip ons before on quads, and other crotch rockets i've owned. I see how my sportster is rigged up and sigh with relief.

However, after I do the easy part; take off 2 mounting bolts, and remove the nut from the clamp, I CANNOT get the damn things to budge.

I can twist the muffler but cannot actually pull it off. The hardware in the clamp is rusted and figuring there might be rust stopping it, but if I can twist it I should be able to pull it.

And no, its not getting caught on that other bar that the muffler is connected to.

Any suggestions? Am I doing something wrong?

 

Have you loosened the header (at the cylinder head) bolts?

 

Sounds to me like it's gonna come down to elbow grease.

 

I hit mine with a little WD-40 at the joint and let that set and loosened all the bolts including the flanges on the engine. You have to pull it up to get it off of the crossover pipe before you can pull it back.

I used a nice pair of grippy gloves and my man pants too.

 

I had the same issue.

Removed bolts under exhaust. Loosened nuts on header pipes next to cylinder so things would move. At this point,I grabbed those little donut type gaskets cause I was going to reuse them.

Under the muffler clamp, there was a small groove or a channel. Not sure what you would call it. I put the screwdriver in the channel and opened it up a little and hit it with wd-40.

Then had a beer.


Rotated the muffler till I could see the other channel and did the same thing. Let it soak in and turned it till it rotated fairly easily (compared to before wd-40, it rotated easily), but it was still snug.

This may not be the best way to do this, but I figured if I ever put the stock pipes back on, the muffler clamps would compress the channels closed again anyway and they would be covered.

Then had another beer.

Kept rotating the muffler and easing it back till started to slide off. This took a while, probably 2-3 minutes but it felt like forever.

They came off. Then I wiped inside of new pipes down. Sprayed a little wd-40 on the header pipe where they were sliding on and it went on no problem at all.

Lifted the pipe up, put the gasket back in, put muffed over it, bolted muffler back on, made sure all looked good and tightened up the header bolts.

Had another beer and repeated everything for the rear muffler.

No garage, done in condo parking, started at 10:15 pm, was riding by midnight.

1.5 hours,3 beers and my neighbors have hated me ever since.

Sorry for the long winded post. Hope it helps!

 

I got it!! I watched a video of some guy removing stock mufflers and said the trick is to twist and pull not just shake and pull.

Starting moving it at that point and got some penetrating lubricant and popped them right off!!


Now I am running a little rough. I read some places that it would be wise to go buy new clamps and gaskets before dumping money into tuning.

Some guy at the stealership said it would cost me $460 for a super tuner and $210 in dynoing it.

Really rather just let it run a little rough and have a little backfire decel, but I dont know if that will hurt it or not. Everywhere I read, from my streetbikes, to harleys, they all saying newer FI bikes dont REQURIE a tuning and will not harm your engine.

There has to be a cheaper way to tune... Im sure the HD shop will rape whoever they can.

 

It will take a few rides to season the pipes, mine ran like **** for about 100 miles but now it sounds good and I only get that decel pop once in a while in the cool mornings...thrilling for the neighbors I'm sure.

 

I would rather replaace slip on's on a sporty then do a oil change LOL! You should have put new gaskets in the cross over bungs in the slip on's they will leak. There should have been no need to remove the header bolts. Your bike should not be running rought after the slip on install at all. You do not not to have a tuner for just slip on's by the way.

 

after loosening them up and using WD-40
I took the rear lower mounting bolt over to the bench where my box of spare bolts are and matched the thread up with a 4 inch long bolt
grabbed the weighted rubber mallet I bought at Harbor freight ... and put a stop nut on the bolt ... back to the bike thread the bolt in till it stops
run stop nut down to secure th bolt in place ... use bolt now as a lever to
turn pipe toward me and get the forward exhaust port off and pointing down ... then just hold the end of the pipe with my left hand and rapping on the bolt with the shot weighted mallet the pipe easily backed right off ... 2 min job ... just gotta use the right tools is all ... I have replaced 2 sets of pipes this way already ... piece of cake ... good luck