While driving the '82 240d today on 71S, my exhaust broke off completely at the down pipe where it's connected to the exhaust manifold. I thought it had been sounding a little loud lately, I guess it was pretty rusted through. Luckily there was a Home Depot at the next exit and the wife and I made emergency repairs with some nylon twine to tie the entire system up and out of the way and used some of the new Gorilla Tape, boy is that stuff heavy duty.
The rest of my pipe, resonator and muffler were unaffected. Headed to my independent muffler/exhaust guy tomorrow to see if he can fabricate something. Do I need a special downpipe or can something be made to work? It's broken off flush with the big clamp right off the manifold.

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'82 240D automatic to manual (sold)
'84 300D (sold)
'12 MINI CooperS Coupe
'71 Triumph Stag
'76 MGB
'08 BMW 535XI wagon
'12 VW Golf TDI

If the guy's good, he should be able to fabricate whatever is needed.

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Whoever said there's nothing more expensive than a cheap Mercedes never had a cheap Jaguar.

83 300D Turbo with manual conversion, early W126 vented front rotors and H4 headlights 400,xxx miles
08 Suzuki GSX-R600 M4 Slip-on 22,xxx miles
88 Jaguar XJS V12 94,xxx miles. Work in progress.

Same thing happened to my 240D (well, it didn't break off, but was swiss cheesy) ten years ago when I bought it. That piece then was easily available for something like $15. I am sure it can be fabbed easily.

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80 300SD (129k mi) 82 240D stick (193k mi)77 240D auto - stick to be (153k mi) 85 380SL (145k mi) 89 BMW 535i 82 Diesel Rabbit Pickup (374k mi) 91 Jetta IDI Diesel (155k mi) 81 VW Rabbit Convertible Diesel 70 Triumph Spitfire Mk III (63kmi)66 Triumph TR4a IRS (90k mi)67 Ford F-100 (??)

If remember it is a ball and cup type of arrangement at the manifold. So no gasket. Might have to buy a premade header pipe. That is unless they can figure a way to incorporate a gasket in whatever they fabricate.