The joints around my two front inlets on the 2 to 1 cat are leaking. I did some research on this site and purchased the exhaust donuts, bolts, springs, etc. needed to fix the leak. However, when I went to do the work this weekend I chickened out as the existing setup is very rusted. The flanges on the catalytic converter look strong enough but the flanges on the two forward pipes look like they would not last through the repair due to the amount of rust. The nuts on the bolts were basically knobs sticking out of the rusted pipe flanges and I did not know where to even start to remove them without breaking the flanges.

Does anyone have a fix for this situation short of new exhaust pipes? Can new flanges be installed on the old pipes? If I needed new pipes, what would the $$$ damage be approximately?

Note I have already fixed the leak somewhat (noise is not bad right now but water leaks out of the joints upon startup) with some high temp epoxy (says up to 500 degrees) but I don't want to create a permanent, inflexible exhaust system and I know the epoxy will eventually fail.