Speaking of stuff not secure, I did get the exhaust buttoned up today. Here's how it started.
It's too bad those mounts broke or else I could have hooked right to them. What I did didn't realize at the start is that the mufflers would end up at that height. If you've been paying attention to the f00k3ry in my previous posts you may be able to piece it together.
I dropped it for 2 reasons: 1 to zap in a wideband bung and 2 to get rid of all those clamps.
Well that was easy. But I really want to address that transmission tail housing while everything is completely out of the way.
Wow. It's thick on the tail, and didn't stick to the trans at all! Yeah that was definitely leaking. Not anymore. It took some elbow grease to get the stud threads clean enough for the nuts to willingly thread down all the way, combination of corrosion, excess orange silicone, and terrible access. I got it back together with a much lighter coating of black silicone. I'm sure there's a gasket or oring I could have used, but I had silicone on hand and wanted this buttoned up. Now the real kicker was the trans cross member. I lowered the trans pan (car) down onto a stack of crap to support the trans while I got that tail out. I watched in a little bit of horror as the trans and cross member lifted up up up. Oh yeah, there's 3 of 4 necessary fasteners finger tightish with wallered out washers. No better time to deal with that than now. Kinda.
Each bolt got a fender washer, one of them looks to be swallowed but definitely has a grip on something. I have another idea for what to use here, I just didn't have any with me and figured this was good enough for the time being. I will address this before it comes off the lift. Not surprisingly, the trans points up quite a bit higher than before. Motor and headers too, now the exhaust was hitting the floor when I tightened up the flange up front with no support out back. Easy fix.
I actually had to give it a little more lovin' a second time, but managed an air gap between it and the floorpan.
I cut the turndowns up a bit higher and tried, with limited success, to get them parallel to the ground. I think it's going to not look so goofy like before. The pipes were just a few inches off the ground to the point they'd scrape on a good bump. They're bolted in nice and tight and easily removed for whatever down the road. Here's where I ended up.
I tried to cut the old mounts off the frame but the wheel wouldn't reach on either side, so I just cut the bottom off and welded on top of the old ones. I'm thinking I may take 2 of the other clamps and soak them in vinegar even though rust is par for the course here.
So tomorrow evening I'll swing out and try concocting something a bit stronger to support that radiator. I think I have a decent simple plan for it. Long term it just needs a new, less butchered core support so tomorrow's fix will have that theme going for it much like today's did. Also, my fitting came in the mail today so I can put my own double flare on that line if it ends up being too long. I think that mostly covers the stuff that the lift is really necessary for. The wiring can be done on the ground anywhere.
One more thing: the driveshaft isn't too short after all! It went in maybe an inch tops compared to where it normally rides. Just had a hella long yoke on it. Ujoints are all in good shape too, but I need to grab a new output seal before I put it back in.
