90 20v exhaust

[Jim Hardesty]

The exhaust note on my newly acquired 90 20v went from a pleasant throaty
roar to a tinny whap whap this week.

Problem: the clamp just before the cat has disintegrated.  It appears the
orginal design was a flange on the cat side connected to a flange on the
header side with 4 springs attached to it.  Apparently the springs were
welded to the flange and bots run thru the springs.  The flange does not
appear to have actual holes thru it, just semi-circular cutouts where the
springs were welded.

Now, I say "appears" because you can imagine what this looks like after 17
years of soaking in saltwater.  I've seen pictures of canons being retrieved
from the sea with less rust on them.

So, one of the springs has completely disappeared.  I assumed I'd just run a
new bolt thru the holes and who cares if it matches the finely tuned spring
engineering.  Unfortunately there is no hole to work with, just a 1/2 circle
of flaky rust to deal with.

I surely don't want to try to remove the upper end of the pipe to put a new
flange on.  Clearly that would lead to more broken bolts and eventually a
new engine after breaking dozens of things on a steady march upward to find
something that won't snap off when you try to remove it.

Any bright and cheap ideas and how to use what looks like a useless 1/2
circle of rust to get this to limp along a while longer?

Thanks

jim