V & H Baggers broke

[watchman]

The rear head pipe on Liz's bike broke yesterday. As normal is it 2 to 3 inches away from the rear head right in the first bend. I am told that this is a common problem with the Vance and Hines Baggers with any age on them. These pipes are the ones she had on her 04 Nomad and they have almost 70,000 miles on them. Of course this could not happen just down the street we where 30 miles north of Alton, IL., about 150 miles from home. We accessed the problem and she decided to go ahead and ride it with the broken pipe. So on to Alton to Fast Eddies we went and then returned home after lunch.

So I am going to call Vance and Hines as soon as they open this morning and just see about getting a replacement pipe. I went back and read the archives on the VROC site and a guy there said you could get a replace pipe for $49.95 and shipping. I intend to do a little bitching and see if they will do any better given the fact that this is a common problem with the baggers that have any age on them.

The pipe can be repaired, the fix is to weld the crack and then weld a sleeve over the crack leaving about an inch of sleeve on each side. This will be a sleeve of about 3 inches on her bike as the crack did not break very clean.

So this morning I removed the pipe by covering the bike up as much a possible. Removing the heat shields, wedged the pipe together and made some spot welds on the crack. Then unbolted the muffler and header flange and remove the pipe. If I have to make the repair to the pipe at least the it will have the right angle on it and fit back OK.