So after selling the El Tigre I've been jonesing to buy another sled. Then I got a $2300 credit card bill. The Christmas season was expensive this year, my car needed 2 new tires, the pickup needed ball joints ($700, curse you Ford!) of course I had to buy presents and so on and so on.
I decided the $400 from the Tigre was better spent on bills. Instead of buying another sled (although theres this John Deere...) I'm working on the poor old wankle Panther. The sled runs pretty good but is really loud. The muffler on this machine was ONLY for this machine, no other AC muffler will fit and every one I've found has rusted to pieces. Unfortunately its basically a coffee can and moisture can pool inside and rust from the inside out...
A couple years ago I'd bought a Cub Cadet muffler which is basically the right shape but it turns out to be about 1/2" too long... Its also still pretty loud. So tonight I'm going over to Seth's shop to borrow his metal cutting bandsaw. I'm going to hack 1/2" out of the middle of the thing. Then when I get back home I'm going to work out some baffles which will hopefully cut the noise some more. As a final step I'm going to pack some steel wool inside to eat up even more sound. I expect the steel wool to oxidize out pretty quickly but with luck my system of buffers should make that not matter.
Tonight's cutting is really step one, Thursday night I should be able to start welding. I've got some old computer cases hanging around. Computer cases are heavy dense steel so I'm hoping they'll make good baffles inside the muffler. Time will tell on that one. Time will also tell if my welding skills have improved enough to make an airtight buffer around the muffler...
-Curt
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