Thanks for the replies, guys. Greatly appreciated.
To make it clear, there is nothing past the muffler aside from the tail pipe With a resonator (unless it is another muffler, but looks like a resonator to me). Here is a diagram:
So it broke off right at the muffler (number 11 in the pic above). Here are a few pics I took yesterday that perhaps will better show what happened.
The tail pipe appears to be stainless steel (one would think they would make the whole thing this way). Not sure what the rest of it is. It looks sturdy aside from the spot where it broke. I am no welder and can’t really say if it can be worked with or not.
The problem with replacement, as it appears to me, is this:
That’s where the tail pipe connects to the muffler. In pretty rough shape. And it appears that I would have to replace the tail piece as well because of it. The logic dictates (I didn’t have a chance to go in deeper and take a look) that the other side of the muffler, where it connects to the converter is in the same rough shape, which implies the need for that piece as well. That quickly adds up to quite a penny.
If it is not fixable
and I have to replace the whole system, I would very much rather just leave it as is and drive it this way. The sound is hardly noticeable, really, and is not that much louder than normal. My concern though is the heat. It is definitely still pretty warm there since I also found this right above where the muffler exit pipe used to be:
I should probably find out where these wires are going as well, lol.
Any more thoughts would be appreciated as well.