Late 300tdi exhaust onto earlier setup

Hi guys, decided to do a Dinitrol top up and repaint the chassis taking care of any surface corrosion before it causes any harm and noted the exhaust centre pipe was a bit shot so opted to buy replacement while it was off to get good chassis access and to save it getting plastered in chassis black anyway.

Anyway, after having a look I decided I would fit the later type exhaust so I could potentially fit a rear tank in the future.

So I bought the ESR4526 which is the centre silencer and the pipe that runs from that over the axle and out.

I note that all non-cat exhausts were a ESR2297 so I figured, great all looks fine, that will fit.

Now the chassis hangers are not the issue, they are "close" if not spot on and I don't mind making up some hangers but the issue is where the centre silencer wants to sit, squint for starters and too low looking (photo below shows it VERY low but that's because it was unsupported, but it is well below the chassis rail which just looks wrong - all I can see is chassis then a big chunk of silencer - going to smack stuff for sure off road.

Can anyone confirm how it looks - I will be doing some serious Googling as well.

Here are some shots from under my 90.

Here's a picture of mine. It's tied up cos I was working out where the hanger needed to go. The bolt hole was full of galv

I'll see if I can find other pictures.

A different angle

Al2O3 said:

A different angle

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Right, that is exactly what I have. The bracket you can see in your photo, above, the U bracket, that is what my old exhaust bolted too, the bracket which I think I need, is the one that will bolt onto the A-frame cross-member for which I have 2 riv-nuts already in there for this purpose. But I am still at a loss as the whole lot just looks like it will be squint, does your silencer sit parallel to the chassis and how low does it sit below the chassis rail? I think I will need to find very quickly or make tomorrow a rear A-frame cross-member hanger and mock up the back to sections which I will then know to be correct, then work it all out.

I have just dug out some photos from my rebuild which shows the centre silencer in place (I used to have a standard 300tdi exhaust with a centre silencer and the silencer under the boot floor, the centre silencer rotted out and I welded in a piece of pipe, so what I have just removed is generally a stock setup just the central silencer was replaced with a pipe of pipe.) now in this image, I can clearly see a short dumpy silencer sitting connected to the mount next to the transfer box and just a little back from it, then the next hanger is just after the actual silencer drum, and hooks onto a bracket connected to the U bracket on the chassis. It looks pretty straight and it also appears to be about the same diameter. So did this original silencer sit low? Is the later 300tdi exhaust setup know for being a bit low, a bit of a rock catcher off road?

I am now annoyed, had I not had ideas of moving to the later type and just bought a straight through section for the middle I would not be having problems, but now I am keen to get it to work.

Wish I had just bought a new centre section and stuck with my perfectly fine rear silencer.

If someone comes along who wants the rear and centre before I get to it tomorrow I may still go down that route. It's good Bearmach parts.

I used a td5 exhaust on my 300tdi build with a td5 tub and tank
Welded my own mount plates used front and back positions with those and rivnutted the middle one to cross in chassis didn't use the middle hook too far away

@discomania
The Mrs uses our Landy for work and she'll be in very soon. I'll take current pics for you then and they'll be up in 30mins.
I'll show you the hanger that goes on that cross member too.
I'll post as soon as I can.

Did you have to rivnutted your middle one? I did front and back havnt done middle one yet. There's like a hanger on the cross section but miles away at back whereas one on the exhaust is to the front. I guessed cos td5 exhaust but sounds like yours has same problem anyway

Here you are mate. Mrs back earlier than I thought.
These are taken from under drivers side.


This is the bracket from same side



Now from the back




To answer your earlier question, the pipe runs parallel to the chassis rail until it does that tight loop over the rear axle. It's probably a shade lower than the rear axle in terms of ground clearance.
If you want any more pictures, just say.

Al2O3 said:

If you want any more pictures, just say.

Click to expand...

Brilliant thanks! That is so helpful.

I will get one of those centre hangers (the one that bolts to the cross-member into the holes with the riv-nuts).

It has confirmed that there is something not just quite right on mine. I had a good go yesterday to get it to fit, I roped my dad in to help hold the silencer in place and all sorts to try and get to the bottom of the alignment issue. As said before I have the new centre and rear and the issue basically stems from the fact that my silencer wants to sit very close to the exhaust mount on the chassis - the one just in line with the back of the transfer box.

If there was one more photo that would be super helpful that would be one showing the middle silencer at the engine side, and showing some of the front pipe.

I think somehow my front pipe is too short, if it was about 2 inches longer the silencer could sit beyond the mount and not cause the silencer to be squint. What makes little sense though is the fact that a stock exhaust was on it before.

discomania said:

Brilliant thanks! That is so helpful.

I will get one of those centre hangers (the one that bolts to the cross-member into the holes with the riv-nuts).

It has confirmed that there is something not just quite right on mine. I had a good go yesterday to get it to fit, I roped my dad in to help hold the silencer in place and all sorts to try and get to the bottom of the alignment issue. As said before I have the new centre and rear and the issue basically stems from the fact that my silencer wants to sit very close to the exhaust mount on the chassis - the one just in line with the back of the transfer box.

If there was one more photo that would be super helpful that would be one showing the middle silencer at the engine side, and showing some of the front pipe.

I think somehow my front pipe is too short, if it was about 2 inches longer the silencer could sit beyond the mount and not cause the silencer to be squint. What makes little sense though is the fact that a stock exhaust was on it before.

Click to expand...

No bother, here are a few more.
From below the box a bit.

In line with the handbrake drum, to give you another reference point.


The hanger at the engine side of the box.

I think I'll go back and get a picture of that hanger bracket for you.

This is a shot of the rear of the silencer showing the unused bracket on the chassis cross member that I think you are referring to as getting in the way.


My system is down pipe with DPF that goes to one silencer box then that loop pipe over the axle. That's it.

Here is a shot of the hanger bracket in front of the silencer box(engine side)

Not great, but I'm holding the camera blindly up against the floor of the Landy with the silencer blocking my view.
This is a shot with the camera up against the back of the silencer box looking down towards the engine. You can see how close it is to the gear box cross member.

Then with the camera sat on top of the gearbox cross member looking further down toward the engine. So the camera is now slightly above the DPF.

There's a hanger beside the DPF (Rear of vehicle side of DPF)

This is what it looks like from the front of the vehicle

Any other angles just shout.
Popping down to my mates down the street, so it may be tomorrow!

Al2O3 said:

View attachment 125478

Click to expand...

That's the money shot! My silencer is hitting the chassis bracket by a fair margin, not like a bash and bit of bending things and it would work, the front section on my vehicle must be too short.

I have a plan, I will drop the downpipe - build up the rear with all the new bits, so they can sit where they want/need to, then I will make the down pipe fit by welding in a new bit, or order a new one. I can only assume somehow at some time someone has fitted the wrong bit or something as mine is for sure about 45mm short.

Thanks again for crawling about under your Defender!

I have just ordered a YRM cross-member hanger, I was going to make it but then I thought stuff it, I will just buy it and bolt it on!

discomania said:

I have just ordered a YRM cross-member hanger, I was going to make it but then I thought stuff it, I will just buy it and bolt it on!

Click to expand...

I made mine out of some steel plate and rod helps if they don't line up perfect, standard ones woulda been a mile off!
Did you manage to make the downpipe fit?

alexc2701 said:

I made mine out of some steel plate and rod helps if they don't line up perfect, standard ones woulda been a mile off!
Did you manage to make the downpipe fit?

Click to expand...

The cross-member hanger I mean is the A-frame cross-member hanger, like Al203 shows in his first image posted above, all the other ones on my 90 are DIY or stock and work fine, but at present I am using the chassis bracket which sits near the A-frame cross-member but from the images above and what I saw when I test fitted the silencer that one is not used instead using the one that bolts onto the A-frame cross-member - I was going to make it as I said above but I figured by buying it I can just bolt it on, suspend the centre silencer and then I know it's sitting where it should and I can make the other bits suit it.

Not done anything yet, I will do it on Thursday night as the missus is away so can work on it all night!

@discomania
Pleased the pictures have got you sorted a bit.
I've hunted through my pile of invoices, from my rebuild, and found the one for the exhaust system, so thought the part numbers may be of help.
ESR4526 Silencer 300Tdi 90 (TA to WA) £43.00
ESR4527 Tail Pipe 300Tdi (TA to WA) £16.50
ESR3495 Exhaust DownPIPE WITH CAT £89.64

My Landy is a 1996 Defender 90 300Tdi

IIRC I bought the two middle hanger brackets and re-used the tail end one. The one near the A frame I bought from YRM like you. Can't remember where I got the other one, but I could look if it would be helpful?

Al2O3 said:

@discomania
Pleased the pictures have got you sorted a bit.
I've hunted through my pile of invoices, from my rebuild, and found the one for the exhaust system, so thought the part numbers may be of help.
ESR4526 Silencer 300Tdi 90 (TA to WA) £43.00
ESR4527 Tail Pipe 300Tdi (TA to WA) £16.50
ESR3495 Exhaust DownPIPE WITH CAT £89.64

My Landy is a 1996 Defender 90 300Tdi

IIRC I bought the two middle hanger brackets and re-used the tail end one. The one near the A frame I bought from YRM like you. Can't remember where I got the other one, but I could look if it would be helpful?

Click to expand...

That's great thanks. I have everything you have up there except I don't have a CAT downpipe, I have ESR2297 which is the non cat version, all versions of the exhaust use the same CAT or non-CAT downpipe so really I should have just been able to fit the later style exhaust without issue - however, something has come to light, I have a flexi on my downpipe, but they only really ever seem to have flexi's on the CAT version, so I think someone has added this flexi in to reduce vibration or something - in doing so I think they have cut it a bit short when they were welding it in!

discomania said:

That's great thanks. I have everything you have up there except I don't have a CAT downpipe, I have ESR2297 which is the non cat version, all versions of the exhaust use the same CAT or non-CAT downpipe so really I should have just been able to fit the later style exhaust without issue - however, something has come to light, I have a flexi on my downpipe, but they only really ever seem to have flexi's on the CAT version, so I think someone has added this flexi in to reduce vibration or something - in doing so I think they have cut it a bit short when they were welding it in!

Click to expand...

Sounds feasible, I suppose. I reckon a new non cat down pipe will be quite inexpensive.

I got this done on Saturday thanks guys.

I bought a new YRM galv hanger that goes from the rear A-frame crossmember to the rear of the silencer and held the front up temporarily.

I then mounted the back and it went on fine and with it sitting where it looked right and the centre box sitting where it wanted to I made a new bracket for the front of the silencer.

I had to extend the down-pipe by an inch and also rotate it so the bend lined up well with the silencer now sitting straight and level.

All good.