How to Replace Flex Pipe 2000-04 Ford Focus

Hi, I’m Mike from 1A Auto. We’ve been selling auto parts for over 30 years!

We're going to raise and support this 2000 Ford Focus. We're going to use our two-post lift. You can use a jack and jack stands. So a majority of front-wheel drive vehicles, what you have problems with the exhaust would be the flex-pipe. You want to start at the front of the exhaust and look back. We're looking for the leak. As you can see, we found our flex pipe and it's broken right off. This is a very common problem, so that's something you would want to look at if you had a loud exhaust.

As you can see, this is what a new flex-pipe will look like. It should have this steel mesh, and obviously the one on the vehicle it has all rotted away and caused this pipe to break. Okay, I'm assuming these will break when we take these nuts off, or they're going to strip out, but we'll give it a try anyway.

I'm going to use a 14mm socket and a ratchet, it'll loosen this up. And it broke. That's okay. We'll try this side as well. This one the nuts are actually coming off. So now I'll grab the pipe and wiggle it out. You should be able to feed it up this way, and then slide it down. Just like that. So for the back one I'm going to try again to take these 11mm nuts off. They're probably going to break. Just use an 11mm socket and ratchet, and that broke. That's okay.

I'll take this side off as well. And that one broke also. Right, I'm going to scrape off what's left of the gasket. Going to use this scraper. We sell these in a kit at 1aauto.com. Scrape off any excess. I'm going to do the same on this engine side. Right so I am going to have to cut this bolt out. What I'm going to use is a whizzer just to flatten it before we drill it out. The first thing I will do is cut this down here. So we may have to drill this out, but just a last-ditch effort, we're going to try and use a little bit of oil penetrant on here. Let that soak for a second, and I'm just going to try to use a little punch try to tap it out. This may break off or not—we'll see how it goes.

So I'm going to try to hold this with a block of wood back here so that I don't break the flange when trying to do this. All right. So I'll use a punch and a little hammer. I'm just going to tap. See what happens. Yeah, it's coming out. Going to pull that wood out of the way. There we go. Now I didn't have to drill it. There's a little bit of metal on there.

Here we have our old exhaust pipe. Here's our new exhaust pipe from 1aauto.com. As you can see, the shapes of the pipes are the same, the flanges are the same, and the flex-pipe is the same. The new pipe comes with new gaskets, and there's these protectors on the ends of the pipe. You're going to want to take these off the studs. Just take a pair of needle-nose, and you can twist 'em off. You want to make sure you take those off before you try to install the pipe. Get yours at 1aauto.com, and you'll be ready to rock and roll.

All right. So we got some new hardware for this. We got some lock washers and we got some nuts. These are 10 1.25 for this. So those will thread on there. We'll put the lock washers on first. Then also for the back we just got some standard hardware with some washers and some nuts, and some little lock washers. We'll use that for the back.

For the front I'm going to put the gasket on first before we put it up. The rear I can just slip it in afterwards. Then you can go install this pipe. I'm just going to slide the pipe up through here. That'll come down through here. Slide it in there. Then I'm just going to loosely put these lock washers on and nuts. I'm not going to tighten them down just yet. Just like that.

All right, so someone tried to fix this with a coat-hanger. Before we attach this, we're going to take this coat-hanger off. I'll just use some cutters. Cut this out. Pull this out. Just cut this one off here as well. Just like that. All right, before we re-secure a hanger, I'm going to install the gasket and the bolts. We'll hold this up, and slide this bolt through here. Then on the other side slide the other bolt through the gasket, and then through the flange right there.

Have this really big washer that'll help support that. I'm going to use a lock washer. Then I'll use a nut, just like that, and do the same for the other side. For this side, look at that right there. Use the washer and lock washer, and then we'll install the nut.

All right, so the reason this pipe probably failed was because the support was rotted away. So we don't have another support, so we're going to just use an exhaust clamp. We're going to feed it through here. Hold this up. Send this on this side, and then put the nuts on. Just tighten that up a little bit, and that'll at least support the exhaust so that it won't put so much pressure on the flex pipe.

So I'm going to tighten these bolts up for our hanger. I'm using a 9/16” socket and ratchet. Then I'll just snug that up. For these bolts I'm going to use a 13mm wrench and a 13mm socket. I'm going to hold this up a little bit while I tighten this down. Then I'm going to do the same for the other side. Snug that down. Snug this down. That's good. All right. Then we're going to tighten up this flange on the front. These are 17mm nuts. Snug these up.

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