98 V70 exhaust leak diagnosis

[98v70dad]

With the car this old (20 years old), chances are the Clamps are rusted and it will be a futile effort to fix it.
Best is to ask a muffler shop to cut the damaged section, find an appropriate pipe and weld it in as a sleeve.

Had the same leak, do this! The clamps are rotted to hell. Tell them to use SS. $80 for my local shop and it is sealed perfectly.

I've already inspected mine. No rot at all - only mild surface rust. Maybe removing them will surprize me but it doesn't seem that there is much rust at all.

Did this little job yesterday. The clamps had zero rot but had a covering of black soot where the joint was leaking. Ditto for both the cat and exhaust pipes. I cleaned everything up with a shop towel and some alcohol - no wire brush needed. The fasteners were a bit corroded and could have been used again but since I bought new ones I used the new ones. The exhaust cement was a bit messy but it sealed up everything nicely. One less leak - now I'll look for others. I've already looked for cracks and didn't find any - they are hard to find though. If anything I wouldn't be surprised if I have a manifold gasket leak.