BANG!!

Gave the Jeep (96) to Mercedes for inspection (bad disk in my back) and had them put on a trailer hitch while they had it (actually a pretty good price??).
To make a long story short, the exhaust is banging on the cross member since Mercedes installed a new rear exhaust hanger, it's banging in the rear when I start out sometimes, not at the hanger or against the hitch and it's banging in the right front someplace sometimes when I start out, sounds like a LCA. And every once in a awhile I'll get a thump in the exhaust manifold area. Maybe motor mounts??
I've done a quick crawl through and checked most of the obvious stuff, but it has been super cold here and more than a few minutes on the ground will freeze your tool.
Is it possible when they had it on the lift they screwed something up?? None of these bangs were there before the Mercedes visit. I'm hesitant to take it back, before I've figured out exactly what is happening. Seems to steer fine, no noticeable play in the steering that I've noticed.
I'll never learn, I sure can't remember any visit to the shop where it didn't take me days to unfunk whatever they did.

It sounds like they put on a hanger that was to long. If that is the case it will allow the exhaust to hang down, by the cat area, low enough to hit the cross member. Putting on a shorter hanger may take care of the issue. As far as the bang in the front by the exhaust manifold area I'm not sure. Bring it by and we can take a look at it. party1arty1:

Apparently hitting escape in this text box deletes everything I typed... learn something new every day.. reached for my coffee and hit it. Time to retype..

Anyway, you said it sounds like its hitting up front (maybe LCA). Could it possibly be as far back as your transmission/transfer case or are you sure its further forward than that? When I had purchased my Jeep one of the previous owners had messed with the exhaust and it was missing the transfer case hanger (the hanger might be on the transmission, I cant remember exactly where since i haven't been under mine in a while).

Eventually, I had to redo the entire exhaust system and used new hangers which allowed a bit more movement in the exhast or relocated it just enough that it would rattle on the metal from the old transfer case hanger area, mostly when it idled down low and during acceleration.

I forget the exact situation though. I had a rotted out portion of the exhast pipe just before the Cat so i moved everything forward a bit. This might have made my case a unique situation, but I think it was bare exhast pipe hitting (I dont think my Cat itself was hitting) so it might still apply to your issue.