BTW, the whole reason for this was my dissatisfaction with my glasspacks. I hated the drone from those pipes.
I cut them out and installed 2 Flo-Pro baffle packs. Much quieter and the drone is gone. I love my Valkyrie again.
Lotsa folks love the glasspack sound. But we are individuals so YMMV. Also tinnitus can rear it's ugly head for many of us, especially those with many miles under their belt, particularly in noisy venues. I personally have to deal with that thanks to the fighter jets in the nam. Anywho, this is one reason I offer Silencers as an option. I run them myself on Jade. You get the extra power and the rumbly note from the glasspack mod, and can tone down the volume to close to stock with the silencers while retaining the note and power.
OK so having said that - on the other subject, fixing broken header welds. I have welded MANY that broke from advanced miles and corrosion - especially on bikes from the SE coast. You can't do a decent weld on the outside of the pipes due to the 3 pipe's close proximity. So I mount the pipes on my jig which holds them in their correct original alignment. Do a Light weld around the outer joints where I can access it to set their alignment w/o the jig. Then cut the muffler can apart a couple inches in, and thoroughly weld it on the inside. That weld will never break as I add much more material than Honda does - this is where they welded it in the first place, but their weld is too light to survive excessive corrosion. Looks like this:
This is best done right before the glasspack mod as I have to go inside the can there anyway to weld in the header collector then add the glasspack before buttoning it back up. Can do this repair at minimal cost when combined with a glasspack mod.
