Fiberglass mufflers?

1979 Mustang 17

So I'm replacing the rubber hoses directly off my exhaust manifolds and when taking the old ones off, I noticed they go into what seems to be blue fiberglass mufflers. Are these something that people commonly remove? I ask because I'm worried about them getting old, cracking, and leaking everywhere. I'm thinking about just replacing them with stainless steel tubing unless anybody here can think of a reason otherwise.

Thanks!

8122pbrainard wrote: Aaron, Many do remove the mufflers. Some run hose all the way while others have run stainless or even copper. Understand the boat will be louder. If you go stainless, be careful to the grade you buy. 400 series (muffler grade) will be cheaper than 300 series but the 400 will not last as long. Personally, I'd run hose all the way since you will have less connections which are all potential leaks.

I think I'm going to take your advice and just run the hose all the way back for now. I just took the mufflers out and my worry was justified, one of the connections is very weak on one of them and actually has a hole in it. Thank you for the advice!

I usually trailer my boat after every use. But we took it on vacation to a lake with a pier in front of the rental house and left it in the water. Almost sank over night because I hadn't turned on the automatic bilge pump.   Pulled the back deck and sat with a beer thinking about it for a while. Finally spotted water weeping from a crack in one of the fiberglass mufflers. Pulled both and reinforced them with fiberglass matt when i got home. Been 6 or 8 years, I check them every now and then and haven't seen a leak since.