[Restyle]

Had a look at a friends (Sept 04) MCS earlier today and was told about how he discovered his Exhaust was leaking on the Welded joint shown below.
Its sort of level with mid point of passenger door.
He had previously found small puddles of water on the garage floor but thought nothing about them, then recently had a look underneath while the engine was running and saw water/steam leaking from this weld.
He`s had the Rough Idle problem for a while now, so I wonder if it can be related at all ??

From an engineering point of view, it seems a curious place to design in a welded joint, especially as its only around 6 inches from a more professional looking Join, where the pipe joins a larger box towards the engine.
It makes me wonder if its some kind of Bodge Job .
I had a look under mine, (also Sept 04), & its got the exact same weld

Can anyone confirm if this same weld is on Coopers & Ones, & if so whats the build date ??

[Restyle]

Theres been an interesting end to this story.
The car was taken in to the dealers last Friday to have the exhaust thoughourly inspected, & while up on the ramps the engineers noticed something very odd & worrying.
The whole front section of the Exhaust was glowing cherry red indicating a possible blockage within the Catalytic convertor, which was subsequently found to be the case
To rectify this they decided to replace the complete exhaust system from Manifold to tail pipes.
This has had a dramatic effect on the engine power & response & so far seems to have "cured" the rough idle problem from which it has suffered from new .
Worth checking out if you suffer from this problem I think

PS.. the replacement exhaust also had the welded section mentioned above