On my way home from work today, I noticed the exhaust note being a bit more growly than normal. Sure enough, upon inspection when I got home, the exhaust pipe is cracked. Teh suk.

The crack in the exhaust pipe, just before the bottom bracket.

Shortly after getting the bike, I noticed that the exhaust can had been rubbing on the rear brake caliper, to the point that both have sort of been ground away. See the picture below. It doesn’t look good, but since the damage was already done, I’ve left it for more pressing things. You may also notice that there’s no bracket for the exhaust can. I asked the seller about it and he said he’d never had one.

The body of the caliper as well as one of the caliper sliders are pretty badly ground away.

After removing the canister, you can see the damage better. The head of the front slider bolt is totally gone and the canister itself has a serious dent in it along with the ground-off parts.

A better view of the caliper damage with the exhaust can removed.

The inside of the exhaust canister is also dented and ground away.

There are indications that the bike went down pretty hard on the right side at some point (e.g., the dent in the exhaust can, the state of the fairings on the right side, the clutch cover damage), so I’m wondering if the exhaust pipe is bent inwards or if whoever replaced the brake (I’m pretty sure it’s
not stock) didn’t check the fit and mounted one that’s higher profile. (I think the guy I bought it from said both front and rear brakes were from an CBR600F3.) There is very little clearance, about 5mm, between the exhaust canister and the swingarm, so the caliper basically could not extend beyond the swingarm outer edge without rubbing on the exhaust.

This is the caliper from above. As you can see, it protrudes outside of the swingarm outer edge. Is the stock caliper the same size or is it lower profile?

Can anyone tell me if the stock caliper is lower profile?

Anyway, after getting the exhaust off and banging on the cracked area a bit it’s clear that the material is pretty rotted on the bottom. It almost seems like the rear pipe is double-walled with some fibrous material in between, but it’s possible it’s just rust. I’ll take it to a muffler shop and see if they can fix it, but if it’s actually bent inward I’d like to also ask them if they can bend it back outward a bit to fix the clearance problem. And I guess I should find a bracket for the exhaust canister…

After removing the pipe and banging on it in different places, it’s clear the bottom of the rear pipe is pretty rotted.