Getting an Exhaust

When I first bought Adrenalin fix it had this giant dual exhaust mess that someone had spent a good amount of time bending and welding and looked basically new. It stretched from the header collector flange all the way back up and over the rear axle and out under both bed sides behind the rear wheels. This was WAY more than I would ever want to have. So, I decided to remove this monstrosity and stash it for later. You never know what it could be used for…

This was an endeavor in and of itself. The entire 2-1/2”, steel erector set was all welded together and, of course, I don’t have one of those fancy 2-post lifts to get the old girl up in the air and make life way easier. It was one hell of a wrestling match to get that enormous, bent up jigsaw puzzle out from under the bed. I think I only dropped it on my head a couple of times. And I only said a couple of bad words through the whole process.

Once I got both sections free, I had to cut it down to make it even manageable. But, yet again I don’t have the fancy tool to make the job easier, so I bust out the dull hack saw from the tool box and start cutting away. After what felt like an eternity of gnawing away at that tubing, I now had a bunch of smaller, easier to handle pieces. I figured I could reuse a lot of it when I was ready to make the exhaust the way I want it, saving myself a bunch of money.

Since that fun-filled day of wrestling, sawing, cursing and swearing now so many moons ago, the awesome guys a Borla Exhaust have offered to build me a fully custom exhaust system that I am so excited for. Luckily, I had hung onto that old exhaust, you know, just in case… And, over this last weekend I finally put it to use. I needed to put some sort of exhaust on the truck, so I could drive it back to California. Now that we live in phoenix, I can’t just drive down the freeway with no exhaust, now could I? That would be a no no.

After a bit more cutting, now with much better tools, and a lot of measuring, the exhaust is hanging on the truck. I began to blame myself for the ugly tack welds I had been laying down, until I realized one of the fittings on the regulator was loose and it was leaking gas badly. See! It wasn’t me after all! I still need to finish all the welds, install the O2 sensors and fab up a couple of hangers for the mufflers, but for a couple of days’ worth of work in our driveway it feels like a pretty good accomplishment. It always feels good when I can get more parts off the shelf and on the truck. And, no money out of pocket.

One small step closer…