[njsteve]

Got the exhaust done today. Took it out for its maiden voyage 10 miles to the exhaust shop. Ran great - no issues at all (other than no hood and open Y-pipe). It took around 6 hours at the local shop. They really did a nice job. They used all existing factory frame holes for mounting points. Never needed to use the seat belt bolt holes as they decided to use the upper frame cross member which had bracket holes already.

They had some really ingenious methods of making mounts, such as the brackets they created that attached to the bottom bolts of the transmission mounts and went out laterally to reach the head pipes. They mated them nicely to the sections of the Y-pipe after it was dissected. The hard part was the over the axle tube creation. That took 3/4 of the time spent. Ended up using Magnaflow 12226 2-1/2"mufflers. Total price was $1,000 including tax - two mechanics working on it for over six hours and 30 feet of pipe, plus the mufflers.

It sounds nice and rumbly now. And much peppier too! Grampa would be happy. :-)