As you recall I had also purchased a new set of stainless steel reproduction exhaust pipes several months back. Since I now have an original set of pipes I decided to do a side by side comparison. The original pipes are in the background. It's easy to see that the reproductions have a significantly larger exhaust tip than the originals and that tells me the repo's will sound different. Since the originals are in such nice shape I decided to swap them out and go all original.
I was bummed when I realized a portion of the front wheel wells and all of the side brackets had to be removed in order to get the exhaust system to fit. After a couple days of deliberating I finally decided to go ahead and do it.
I cut the fiberglass using my Fein Multi-Master tool as seen in the previous picture. It's a great tool and it worked perfect.
The brackets are heavy gage steel and they are very close to the frame. I decided to cut these brackets with one of the most diabolical tools I own. The twin bladed, counter rotating, tungsten tipped Twin-Blade from Sears. You can see it in the picture below. This is a scary tool and it demands a ton of respect. It will cut through anything... and I mean anything. You turn it on and push it toward whatever you want cut. No backlash, no jamming, no slowing down. It took 1 minute to cut these brackets. I could have cut the frame in half in the same amount of time if I wanted to. It's a cool tool but very scary.
Done.
The exhaust covers and trim were installed first followed by the exhaust pipes.
The front brackets were sand blasted, painted and riveted in place.
The bolt that holds the exhaust pipe is suppose to go through a hole that I was suppose to drill in the frame. I decided to weld the bolt to the frame instead. It worked great and is very strong. By the way, that's only surface rust in the exhaust pipe. The pipes are like new.
They sound great and look awesome.
Yes, I did both sides.
This completes our Era Modified changes. Modifications include the Torq-Thrust D wheels, side exhaust, and the 67 big block stinger hood. Not shown is the rear torsion bar. I like it!
