I'm still thinking about taking my truck on a road trip to St. Louis pretty soon. I took the time off, got the invite from my friends, my son is willing, but I need to do something about the exhaust before I take this for that many hours on the road. I have most of the parts on hand, and should be able to get it done in time. So today I dove in and got started. The truck is up on jack stands, almost as high as the Jimmy now, maybe higher.
The only thing I had to do to get the existing exhaust out was unbolt the reducer from the header collectors. One of the problems to deal with is that one of my blemished headers I bought for cheap has a crooked collector flange. I took a couple pics, but it's kind of hard to see. The driver side is about 1/4" off straight.
So to fix it I cut and sectioned one of the reducers, then welded it back up.
That put it close enough to matching the other side and will get the exhaust up about 1/2" or more from where it was.
The next thing was to add the oxygen sensor bung into the reducer for the other side. I set it on the reducer where I wanted it, tapped a centering hole, and drilled it out. It took a 7/8" drill bit and when you have a bit that big in a pretty potent 1/2" drill, hold on tight cause that thing is gonna want to take you for a ride.
Before I took the exhaust out I was kinda planning how I wanted to route it compared to where it was. As of now I wanted the crossover section back about 6" from where it is. That gives me a little more room to work around the tranny pan. So I cut a couple sections of tube for that.
BTW, if you dont have a chop saw or something like it and you want something to cut steel nice and easy, I highly recommend a horizontal band saw. I got mine used at an estate auction for about $50 and the blades are cheap. I think harbor freight sells them too.
In this last pic, the top end goes to the header reducers. The bottom end will have tube added to widen it out to outboard the frame rails.
From there I go straight back then up a bit and into the mufflers. Then out of the mufflers and over the axle. I plan on removing the riveted bracket for the bump stop and routing the exhaust pipe right there, then down and out the side behind the tire.
I'm almost out of weld gas, so I need to get some of that soon. And my cheapo tubing expander doesn't quite have the power to stretch this tube, so I will take it to a guy I know that has a better one, so I can get the front tubing onto the header reducers.
Anyone interested in some barely used flowmasters can PM me.