Muffler came apart plugged up maxton valve replaced valve replaced oil and straight piped muffler for installation of valve. Any downside to not using a muffler besides noise will the pulsation hurt the valve, there is no hydraulic banging thinking I'll leave it run until new muffler comes in.

Pulsation won’t hurt the valve , in fact most install the muffler after the valve. There really are only two good mufflers , the Dover\TK muffler and the MEI bladder muffler , all others offer very limited correction of liner flow. In fact allot of the smaller companies around here skip them all together . I notice as soon as I get on the elevator , but most customer don’t.

Air bladder style mufflers work but why have something that fails that you have to replace under a maintenance contract. We have had to replace several already. We no longer use them on new construction or modernization.

I agree with previous statements. Not having a muffler wont hurt as long as theres no ride quality issues from vibrations or noise. I prefer the canton style mufflers, they look like the Dover mufflers but are welded. Work well and never need maintenance.

After rereading my last post to be clear we use mufflers like Cantons but will not use air up mufflers. Sorry for the confusion if any