I bought an Exhaust system, IMASAF (italian production) Fiat 500 R/126/126P from axel Gerstl.
Just tried fitting it and have a few problems.
1. It doesn't fit
2. It doesn't fit
3. It doesn't fit


but seriously the flanges that bolt to the elbows still have some pipe protruding out of the flange. Is this correct or do I cut them off?
I don't have any gaskets that thick and they don't fit inside the elbow hole.
Presumably if I cut these off then the exhaust will move over 5mm and then hopefully the 650 brackets will fit.
Anyone else had this problem?

It shouldn't have any flange there Sean. It should be a flat face, well it was on my 500 and my odd 2 into 1 650 exhaust.

Tony

following on from my machining conversation with Tony from Middle Barton - apparently this is a very common problem - and he has found only one make that fits......damn....what have I bought then???

Look into the exhaust elbows and on the EXHAUST side you will see there is a cut-away lip just inside the elbow, because if my memory serves me correctly, the factory exhausts DID have a small 'male' lip that matched the female lip in the elbow. However, the exhaust that I bought from Tony C/M did not have a protruding lip, so when I ported the elbow, I gasket matched it and the 'female' lip was lost as the elbow was ground down to the level of the lip (which then matched the shape if the gasket)--does that make sense?

Thanks all,
I presumed it was something like that, but the elbows I have don't have a recess for the exhaust to fit into, so I guess I will have to remove the excess pipe. I did check Axel Gerstl site and he doesn't list any other standard exhaust for the 650. Just thought I would check in case I had the wrong exhaust.
Hopefully I will get the engine started tomorrow

I think that the exhaust elbows are not compatible with the exhaust. This happened to me when I had a good used pair of elbows from a 500 and I was fitting a 126 exhaust. The 500 elbows took a smaller tube so had to rummage around for some good 126 ones. Having said that I recently did some work on a 126 engine and the lady supplied some new Polish made exhaust elbows. They were so poor and inaccurate I refused to fit them. Getting a good fit on the exhaust is vital on these engines otherwise you risk damaging the head. The steel bolts into the head is a disaster as the bolt ends are exposed, they corrode then when withdrawn they can rip out the threads in the aluminium . I prefer to use studs in the head with stainless nuts or at the very least stainless bolts.

Cheers David,
The elbows were off a polish 126p engine. I do have a few more elbows on my other 2 engines, I will check them out first and see if they have the recess in them.

all exhausts I have fitted to 500 and 126 have the lip in the elbow..it seems your elbows may be the problem...I know on the site you mention offer two elbows, cheap polish and Italian...I did get the cheaper one and this did have the lip but was poorly casted, I had to file a lot of it to match the exhaust hole on the head. I did come across one engine that had no lip but under examination the lip was filled with exhaust filler which had become the same colour as the inside of the elbow....