Greetings,

I want to remove, clean/paint and then reinstall the mufflers on my 08.
It is an automatic with NPP. How hard of a job is it, and can I do it with the rear of the car on ramps?

Thanks!

 

You can do this with mufflers on the car without going through all that work.

Just mask the areas around it with plastic well, and also cover the car tightly so overspray will not land on your paint. You can clean and paint them in the same time it takes you just to remove them?

I have done mine this way. (with flat black high heat spray paint) Dont worry too much for a perfect job on the very top, no one sees that part anyhow, including you.

 

It's tough getting the mufflers to turn loose from the X-Pipe. When I installed my NPPs, I found it easier to jack the entire car up and disconnect the X-Pipe from the exhaust manifolds. Then you grab the X-Pipe while laying on your back and shake the snot out of them while pulling forward until they come free from the mufflers. Now you can remove the mufflers.

I agree with gsflyer, paint them while they are still on the car. I plan on touching mine up that way, although I may disconnect the muffler mounts at the very rear.

 

Yep, I recently put a set of Corsa Sports on my 07 with 45k miles. The absolutely worst part was getting the H Pipe to turn loose of the mufflers.

PB Blaster the joint the night before and let it soak!

 

Yep , that's how you do it .... lol

Dave

 

Yep , that's how I did mine , no need to go crazy ....

 

I agree with everyone that the biggest PITA is getting the h-pipe unfrozen from the tailpipes.
However, with the car on a lift, you can also remove the mufflers without removing the H-pipe, by taking hold of the tailpipes and twisting the mufflers from side to side to loosen them from the H-pipe. I actually found this was an easier way to do it, since you can twist each muffler independently on each pipe on the h-pipe.
What I do is:
Firstly and obviously, remove is the rear sway bar;
Next, carefully disconnect the rubber hose ends for the NPP;
Take the bolts out of the muffler brackets to let the mufflers drop and be free to twist around;
Then I loosen and remove the h-pipe to tailpipe clamps, and then use a big screwdriver to open the little compression slots on the side of the h-pipes where it fits over the tailpipes (Note: 8 have a Pfadt exhaust, so I'm not sure whether the stock pipes have these slots?) and spray some penetrating oil (PB blaster works real good) into those and then work tailipes about and spray some more penetrating oil in the joint until it's loose, and the tailpipe twists freely on h-pipe;
Once you're certain that the tailpipe is no longer binding on the H-pipe, then take your time and twist the mufflers around to rotate the tailpipes on the H-pipe and pull them off the h-pipe, one at a time;
Once each muffler is loose, then, to get it out, you'll have to drop the muffler down and twist it around so as to snake the tailpipes over the trans/diff/axle assembly.
BTW: Be careful when you're pulling the mufflers out (and putting them back in) that you don't snag or hit anything with the tailpipes, like the plastic trans transmission shifter linkage on the driver's side, because you could easily break that off while trying to pull the muffler/tailpipe assembly out (or put it back in).