Installation of my "new-to-me" muffler

[Grumpy Goat]

Here’s the better side shot. And one showing the bracket. There are slots where the bracket mounts to the muffler, allowing front to back adjustments.

Dave, you are on to something right there. I did mount the bracket with the screws in the centre of the slots (as a starting point) but did not move the muffler w.r.t the bracket after that, since the installation of the heat shield was not going to happen the first time around due to the wrong clamp being shipped from the previous owner.

So yes there is some room to slide the muffler forward which would take up some of that gap.

It could be that the pipe didn’t seat fully into the factory pipe. Also the mid pipe can rotate, changing that angle.

No, the pipe is into the front end of the muffler as far as it can go, so the only other adjustment is the rotation angle.

Yours has a larger (but even) gap compared to mine, and in my opinion, the even gap looks better if there is to be a gap at all. I think that some jiggling of the muffler has to happen, now starting with the bracket. I may end up rotating and pushing the muffler backward to achieve the look of yours, since I am very doubtful that the heat shield will go fully into the front of the muffler. Luckily all this faff (as the Brits say) does not take much time.

I will report back in this thread.