i have a vance and hines muffler but how can i tell if its a slip on or not?

The Vance & Hines full exhaust it a header section (with the 2-into-1) and the muffler (with welded on mid/link pipe); both of these have hooks where springs attach to hold them together.

Slip-ons use the stock headers (for the GS cut the mid-pipe to remove the stock can) and the slip-on clamps on the remaining stub of the mid-pipe.

awesome thanks!  looks like i got a full! sucks its in need of replacing. the previous owner some how put a hole in it and welded it up. is there anywhere i can get a good deal on a new one? i really like the way it sounds.

The stock is a POS ... the V&H is far far far worse. I used to have one on one bike, it was parked for a while, when I got it fixed and started it ... literally a whole layer of the muffler peeled and dropped off in chunks as the bike warmed up. I went WTF and shut it down, and removed it and scrubbed it and painted it before starting the bike again. What a POS.

Jardine is a lot better I heard, SS headers, however SS is no guarantee it wont rust. SS is still steel, its been dipped in nitric acid and forms a protective coating. Heat can burn that coating off and then its adios to the "stainless" part. After a few years you might as well paint that too.

Cool.
Buddha.

yeah this ones rusted and really banged up.ill look into jordine. its hard to understand why it cost 300 bucks for it. if i gotta repaint it some times thats fine.

You've mentioned stainless steel and acid a couple times, but I do have to call foul on that one.
If it was simply dipped in acid, you couldn't machine it (i.e. stainless steel chain guards as one example) and scratches would make rusty marks.

Frim the WIKI:

In metallurgy, stainless steel, also known as inox steel or inox from French "inoxydable", is a steel alloy with a minimum of 10.5%[1] chromium content by mass.

Stainless steel does not readily corrode, rust or stain with water as ordinary steel does, but despite the name it is not fully stain-proof, most notably under low-oxygen, high-salinity, or poor-circulation environments.[2] There are different grades and surface finishes of stainless steel to suit the environment the alloy must endure. Stainless steel is used where both the properties of steel and resistance to corrosion are required.

Stainless steel differs from carbon steel by the amount of chromium present. Unprotected carbon steel rusts readily when exposed to air and moisture. This iron oxide film (the rust) is active and accelerates corrosion by forming more iron oxide, and due to the greater volume of the iron oxide this tends to flake and fall away. Stainless steels contain sufficient chromium to form a passive film of chromium oxide, which prevents further surface corrosion by blocking oxygen diffusion to the steel surface and blocks corrosion from spreading into the metal's internal structure, and due to the similar size of the steel and oxide ions they bond very strongly and remain attached to the surface.[3]


...now back to our regularly scheduled program.......

I've machined a lot of stainless over the years and it is the same all the way thru. It is not a surface treatment. Like all metals there are different alloys with properties for different applications.