[washington blue]

I cut roughly 3/4 inch from both the front of the axle inclining, and also the rear of the axle declining exhaust pipes, you can see the front cut clearly in the photo. Since I tend to over build just a little I had the pipes shoved into the mufflers almost 3 inches so now they are in the mufflers about 2 1/2 inches after my "shortening" project, lol. Plenty for clamping, glad I did that, saved me from having to splice in some short pieces. I put a socket in above the exhaust and the socket measures 15/16 so I have about an inch of room between wood and pipe. Should have plenty of room to have a heat shield halfway between the two things now. That's my next job I guess. Thanks for the input everyone, this was definitely the thing to do.