[DerbyBlue]

This afternoon, my two-year old, Jake, was "helping" me work on the bike.  In about 3 seconds flat, he took out my 11 mm deep socket and inserted it into my muffler.  It promptly slid down the muffler and disappeared.

I have one of those telescoping magnets, and I tried to retrieve it with that, but no luck.  It looks like the pipe inside the muffler bends down about 2 feet from the end of the muffler, and I can't get the telescoping magnet or a close hanger beyond that bend.  So since I can't get anything beyond the bend, I'm wondering where my socket went. I suppose sockets are just resourceful.

Any suggestions for retrieving it?  How hard is it to remove the muffler?

 

[DougZ]

Attach the magnet to a string, and use a non metalic rod to push it up the exhaust, like an old fishing pole...something that will bend. The socket is probably just at the lowest point, as dictated by gravity.

 

[Mr. Black]

Buy a slip on.

 

[stranger]

cut it - buy a holeshot coupler to reinstall it.

then cut the kid and try and find a coupler to put him back together

 

[DerbyBlue]

Buy a slip on.

Perhaps I should have said useful suggestions  

There are clamps on each of the pipes before they get to the muffler. Can you remove those to get the muffler off? I think it may have gone down into the pipe.

 

[Nexus242]

nope the stock pipe is welded into one piece, aren't kids just spiffy!!

 

[nc_sv650]

There's not that much holding the pipe on: the flange at the exhaust port, one (or two?) hangers under the engine, a clamp on the rear pipe and  another on the muffler. Shouldn't take too long to tear if off (1/2 hour, maybe a little longer) and -hopefully!- shake that sucker outta there. You may need a new exhaust gasket, but you can probably get away without it.

 

[RandyO]

have you tried starting the engne and reving it, it'll likely spit right out

 

[Damo]

Damn! if you do that.. make sure to video it.
I want to see how far an 11mm socket will eject from the exhaust    ;D

+1 on dropping the whole exhaust off the bike BTW.
then you can probably just upend the whole thing and shake it out

 

[Kaxter]

I would just drop the exhaust off of the bike, it doesnt take too long.

This is very funny though, I could see my neighbors little 3 year old do something like this.

 

[DerbyBlue]

Got it!  I've never been so happy to see an 11mm deep socket.  I tried Randy's suggestion, but no luck.  Before I dropped the muffler, I figured I'd try a few more times with different variations on the magnet.  I ended up doing pretty much what DougZ suggested.  I put my magnet inside another small socket to shield it so only the end was exposed, tied it to a piece of string, then used a wooden dowel to push it down the pipe.  I damn near gave up after about an hour with the string, then I got lucky.

Have you ever peered down the tail of the stock pipe?  There's a "ledge" about 2 feet down, and the socket was apparently just beneath the ledge - blown there probably when I tried to blow it out.

Kax - yes, it was funny (especially now that I've gotten it out), and he's just too damned cute to get mad at.  I know I caused my Dad no end of grief when I "helped" him in the workshop.  I was just amazed that he was able to do it so fast.

Thanks guys

 

[RandyO]

I wasn't sure if it would work or not, I thought of it cause a couple years ago, a friend with a TLR started his bike up after a winter of storage, and he learned to stuff rags in the exaust now, when he started it up, the exaust spit out about 5 lbs of pine cone fragments & acorns

 

[o_town_racer]

square peg goes into square hole.....round peg goes into round hole....perfectly logical

 

[DougZ]

Got it! I've never been so happy to see an 11mm deep socket. I tried Randy's suggestion, but no luck. Before I dropped the muffler, I figured I'd try a few more times with different variations on the magnet. I ended up doing pretty much what DougZ suggested. I put my magnet inside another small socket to shield it so only the end was exposed, tied it to a piece of string, then used a wooden dowel to push it down the pipe. I damn near gave up after about an hour with the string, then I got lucky.

Glad it worked out for ya.

See my fellow SVR'ers..not all my posts are useless like Jim, Josh and Nate's. ;D

 

[PrtclMn001]

haha... glad it worked out for you... too bad marbles in a gas tank of a car aren't as easy to get out...

 

[donniej]

Like nc_sv650 said... dropping the exhaust is easy.

Two 12mm nuts on the front header and an allen bolt holding it to the rear section
An allen bolt holding the header onto the rear cylinders flange
Two 12mm bolts bolding it to the frame and one more bolding the muffler onto the bike.

Take the bolts out and tap it apart with a rubber mallet of piece of wood.

If it takes you more than 1/2 an hour then your doctor needs to lower your dosage.

 

[aceluck]

glad you got it out! My suggestion, which I'm surprized nobody has yet mentionned, would be to simply executed a nice 12 o'clock wheelie. socket should drop right out. ;D

 

[eisenfaust]

You know, when I was a kid, I put a couple of golf balls in the muffler of my grandfather's mercedes. *That* was fun. We drove all around Pebble Beach, up hills, trying to get them to roll out. Heh.

Not sure how we ever actually got those things out there.

Oh, I also decided to fix the pinstriping on my grandmother's VW Rabbit with 3M white-out. :-X :-X :-X :-X

Wasnt I a great kid? :-\ :-\

 

[ribbon_cable]

I was once doing a tune up on a GSXR750 and when I went to change the air filter I found that someone had filled the airbox half full of dog kibbles. The owner could not figure out why the bike had started to run so poorly... and had not explanation on who would fill his airbox with kibbles.