When I arrived home today there was a box waiting for me from SNG-Barratt. It contained my new heat shield, along with a few other parts (to be revealed at a later time.) I noted that the hole pattern in the new one was a bit different than the old one, which was proven true once i went out to the barn. This meant that my over-sized hole in the body of the car was irrelevant. Only two of the six holes lined up, so I ended up drilling new holes in the car. The view above was shot when I was part of the way through the process of installing it.
That went pretty smoothly compared to the next part: installing the exhaust itself. This is when it would be really nice to have a 4-post list and lots of room. I don’t. The car is up on jack stands and I’m lying on the ground underneath. This exhaust is like a Tetris game. Lots of fiddling and repositioning to get things right. The mufflers are kind of heavy and had to be supported by wood blocks while I fished bolts into place. Took the better part of the evening but I have them on the car now. I started with the pipes under the IRS and gave up when I realized I’m going to have to loosen the mufflers now to get them to fit. :\
Oh well. There is a cross-bar between those two pipes and two bolts that hold that on. This is the lowest point on the car other than the wheels of course. When the car bottoms out at speed these two bolts are what hits the ground. Have a look at them:
My kids can probably tell you exactly where all that metal went.
Hopefully I’ll have the car back together this weekend.
