FrankenExhaust

Next was to temporarily join the body back to the chassis.

Unbolt the body from the jig.

It's just something you don't see everyday.

Align the chassis mounts with the body holes.

Mated

Now I can continue with fitting the exhaust.

It is catching up to the LTD. I'm probably the only idiot simultaneously tackling two body off frame refurbishments and modifications to mostly similar cars at home. It's been one heck of a learning curve, that's for sure.

I got a little carried away and forgot about these parts.

These are the two rear tail pipe hangers. That's the old material up top. I blasted and powder coated the rest of the bits.

At least I didn't have to make these from scratch as I did on the LTD.

For the main exhaust hangers (at mufflers) I found the older GM hangers a much nicer solution. I was able to buy the female portion I just had to make the male portion to work and use the same holes in the frame as the factory ones.

I took 3/16" steel and arched it in the middle using some sketchy setup in the press and engaged safety squints and partly hid off to the side in case parts went flying under the intense pressure. Then I just used the torch and made the curve.

Welded the mounting tabs on and powder coated. These are a direct copy off the LTD since this whole exhaust is a carbon copy.

Ready for mufflers.

I'm really behind on posting on this one. It's been fraught with battles and up hill climbs but it's getting there.

Since the onset of the China virus I've been bouncing around on different aspects of this projects as well as other projects. The ordering and receiving of parts has been substantially delayed. So this is bits and pieces intermixed in chronological order not project order. Please bear with the jumping around. On the other hand if you have ADHD, then you'll love it .

From where I left off I had to fit the body temporarily on the body back on the chassis to fit the rest of the exhaust. The generic body mount kit that magically fits all 3rd gens (but really doesn't) had to be modified.

These are the front upper isolators, they needed to be chamfered in order to fit the inner pocket in the front body structure.

Now they can seat properly in here. So the body was bolted back on for now.

Time to weld on the flanges for the mufflers. As you know I despise the friction fitting of tube over tube then clamped. I like the elegant means of simply bolting and unbolting the exhaust with little effort as possible.

I used a piece of scrap pipe as a jig to centre the flanges for welding.

Done. These are Walkers stainless steel flow series. These are the quietest of the mufflers in the hi-flow category. (and they're still pretty darn loud with full exhaust and resonators)

Finished the main part of the exhaust.

Tis a bit of work. Again this whole exhaust engine and transmission are a carbon copy of the '66 LTD I'm working on in tandem.

Took a few adjustments but it's presentable.

Now this is the rear tailpipe kit I bought for the '66 LTD. I didn't realize it at this point or when I thought I was finished but they didn't bend this the same as when I bought this much earlier for the '66 LTD. I didn't catch it till I thought I was done and working on fuel lines. So we'll be coming back to this later. But I soldiered on with the rest of the tailpipes. (As a side note these are GM A body early 70's pipe set). Can you spot the problem at this point?

With some adjustments they are seemingly fitting ok.

continued in next post.