Today my lovely gf and I took a road trip up to the montly swap meet up in Webster, FL and came back home with a shiny new (to me) Dyna exhaust for my bike. I got the exhaust with the rail-mount bracket that everyone on here seems to recommend, a clamp, and a bolt-on heat shield that I should be able to cut up into a serviceable cover for the mess once I manage to get it together... all for $12.
Once I got home I figured I would tackle the installation today, since it looks pretty straightforward and there are plenty of instructions around here on the process, unfortunately I'm running into issues and figured I would ask for advice.
The first issue I came across is that the Dyna doesn't slip all the way on (as pictured) like I've seen in other folk's photos (such as in Serowbot's post over on the Tech Documents page here
http://suzukisavage.com/cgi-bin/YaBB.pl?num=1298689417). After getting everything together I'm getting exhaust leaks all around the connection. I'm using the same "tin can gasket" method that Serowbot mentions in that thread, and can't seem to get rid of the leaks. I'm curious if it might be because the exhaust isn't slipping on as far as mentioned in that thread.
It seems to me that the internal part of my header pipe is butting up against the lip on the inside of the Dyna, and will not but up flush aginst the raised lip on the header pipe unless I remove some of that (which I would prefer not to do). I'm doubtful that this is likely the problem with the leaks, there seems to be plenty of header going down into the slip-on.
The second issue I ran into was that the clamp wasn't working as well as I thought it should, and I realized that it was missing one of the pieces (that's what I get for a dollar, I guess), so I tried to make it up by stuffing a couple of large washers in there. With the washers on the clamp I could tighten it enough that I couldn't tighten it anymore with a wrench... afterwards I'm still getting the leaks.
I made a run tonight to all the local dollar stores and parts places to see if anyone had a serviceable clamp, but nobody had anything that looked nearly beefy enough (aside from the normal U bolt clamps available at the auto parts places, but I'm thinking those would not work well).
So... should I try a new clamp? Is the problem likely that I'm not tightening it down enough? Should I try something other than a tin can for a gasket? Should I find someone with a welder?