Exhaust fange problems

[Jape]

Recently I noticed that my exhaust had gotten a lot louder. Upon inspection, I found that my muffler flange had broken off at the weld. I dont have the spare cash to get a replacement muffler so I'm trying to find an alternative solution but the flange bolts are so rusted that im having trouble getting them to budge. Any one have tips for this? Also the one bolt seems to have some sort of nut protector possibly welded on and I'm not sure how to remove that either. I've tried WD-40 and still no budge.

[alonsorules8.1]

you should try PB Blaster let is soak in for and hour or so and they should budge.

[mrmont]

I had the same thing happen to my 2008 Versa recently, the muffler flange weld broke. I took it to a local muffler shop and they cut out the whole flange deal and welded in a curved pipe for $50. It didn't appear that there was anything else wrong with the muffler itself, so yours may not need replaced either. However, if you can get yours unbolted you may be able to just weld the flange back on. I didn't really have a way to get under there to work on mine, so I figured $50 was cheap enough to not have to deal with it myself.

[Jape]

I have actually found a cheap fix for this problem... Even cheaper if you have the welding capabilities. I had my father in law help me since all he does is weld. But I took the muffler to him and we took a 4 inch piece of steel tubing that was 1.5 inces in diameter and slid it into the muffler piece and just added two spot welds. Now that piece slides into where the flanges are connected (still couldnt separate them) and it just passed on my inspection yesterday. I feel it's a slight advantage to cutting the flanges off just in case I ever need a new muffler, its still capable of being bolted onto the flange. Really a terrible situation where nissan knows these welds are breaking and then price gouge on the cost of a new one but what can you do.