What holds the flex cover on the top of the exhaust pipe

[imboden]

First of all this is my first post here. My name is Pat and I'm a firefighter in wa state. My first bike was an 05 night train, then followed by a 79 shovelhead, and just recently my dad gave me his old seattle cossacks bike, his 1951 Panhead. I've got all three bikes, and I've torn the panhead down to the frame and now I'm gettin it all back together.

my dumb question is this....what holds the flex cover on the top of the exhaust pipe? do I cram it up and clamp the flex cover and the pipe together? or is there a seperate clamp up there? or do I cram it up as far as I can and clamp the bottom? Man, I just wanna do it right..

thanks

[fourthgear]

You may find that you may have to cut them to length to fit , I use a Dremel with a reinforced cut off wheel to do the job ,but a hack saw may work , if you have to cut at all, you will find that once you cut through some, it will turn off or unscrew, sorta.

Mine pretty much just stick there , I have to do a great deal of wiggling to get them on and off.

[VintageTwin]

Yeah the covers just jam-stick onto the headers. The front cover slides on easy enough. You may not have to cut off any of the length. The front header-to-frame-clamp connects below where the flex-cover ends.
The rear one on a rigid Pan rear header goes on not so easy, You really have to twist it to get it on (after you've cut two more compression slots in the bell of the header. Two slots aren't enough for the bell to actually clamp tightly on the exh. spigot. Four slots is what works best).
If you have to cut some off the length of the rear flex-cover, mark it where you want to cut it and then remove it and after you cut it off to fit. Braze the bottom of the expando-coil so it stays together and you don't have a jagged point flailing. I try to cut and braze mine so it's on the backside of the rear flex-cover.