perfectly round hole in '92 240 header pipe?

i was driving yesterday and suddenly the exhaust is making noises from
under the car, on the drivers side. didn't run over anything that i'm
aware of, although there were several pieces of truck tire in the road.
turns out there's a hole in what i believe is the header pipe (i'm
making guesses based on what i've found around the web) on the
passenger side. clearly something was knoncked out of this hole, which
appears to be blowing exhaust straight out towards the passenger door.
this seems like something i ought to be able to fix. what goes there?
is it something i can get from autozone?

 

Sounds like the threaded plug used to fill the test port worked loose
and flew off.

Any bolt of the correct length, width and thread grade / pitch will do,
but might be easiest to go to the dealer (new) or wrecking yard to
secure a replacement.

 

it actually looks like the threaded piece that the bolt was held by
came off. would it be a terrible idea to patch that hole with an
exhaust repair kit?

 

You can certainly try, but I suspect the repair won't hold.

Go to an exhaust shop and have him do it right.

 

It'll probably just blow off. If you go to an exhaust shop they should
be able to weld in a new bung for around $30.

 

should i just pull in to the nearest muffler place? would a midas rip
me off?

 

You could just pull into the nearest muffler place, sure. But wouldn't
you want to do a little research first?

Since Midas has been around for a long time I would suspect that most
of their shops are as honest as any other repair shop. Not cheap but
honest. But what exactly do you consider a ripoff.

They might be able to weld in a repair plug. But they also might have
to replace the header too, which will be more expensive. So be
prepared and consider getting one other opinion if you don't like the
price.