Auto Tip: Thrift is the Better Part of Ingenuity

My International is under the wrench this week. It’s getting a new exhaust system, among other things. The old assembly was totally shot, the factory exhaust had rusted out long ago and the equipment I removed was a repair made some twenty years ago by the previous owner.

I bought two new mufflers and about twenty feet of two-inch exhaust tubing: both flexible and fixed. But I realized that in order to install the new exhaust line, I would have to figure out a way to use the old mounting hardware. Rather than fabricate totally new hardware, I decided to cut out the remaining good sections of the old exhaust tubing and use them to mount the new system.

If I had taken all the old parts to the scrap yard as I had intended, this wouldn’t have been an option. The point is: thrift is the better part of ingenuity. Never scrap old parts until you can compare them with their replacements.

Supporting this point: I had initially intended to order most of these parts from an automotive website, but found that it was much more cost effective to buy locally. As it happens, I found quality parts from the auto-parts store down the road from my home, and bought everything I needed for about the price of ONE muffler on the internet (that was with free shipping too). As I said above, thrift is the better part of ingenuity.