V8-Ranger.com

I just had my truck towed to the exhaust shop. The cheapest tow I could get was $55. The exhaust shop sucked so bad. They didn't have the flanges to fit on the headers. The rummaged through some old junk and found two half assed flanges that "might" work. Then they didn't have the correct thread for the headers so they got smaller bolts and ran them through with a nut on the end (loosely for fit). O2 sensor bungs? yeah right. Didn't have those either. Everything they were attempting was so piss poor I finally had to stop them and just get towed back home. So $110 later still no exhaust.

From a friend of a friend I've now found a really good muffler shop that works on race cars etc. I'm not paying another tow fee so instead I'll just build the very first part with the O2 sensors myself and then use some drier duct to a set of mufflers I have laying in my shed and drive it out there next weekend.

Oh well. Live and learn.

It's hard to find a good shop these days. Alot of them dont want to fool witht the time it takes to measure and bent, measure and bend to get it right. To be honest I found most have prefabbed components. They require it for the cat pipes these days with the special flanges. In my pre-swap research. I found MAC makes the female ball and socket flanges @2.5" with the collar. They go for about $30. As for the O2 bungs, a cheap way out is to get some of the sparkplug fouler adapters for a large sparkplug, like what came in the Ford 390's and 300 Six's. Cut the male thread off and fit it to the curvature of the exhaust pipe. I've used them once before on a set of headers that did not come with O2 bungs and put them in, Just a word from experience. Put a used plug in the thread to prevent spatter from the welder, and the anti-splatter spray would be great too, it just keeps the slag from sticking. I didn't use them the first time and got a glob of slag the destroyed the female threads. Or you can spend 20 a bung for prefabed. Just my two cents. Hope it helps.

Sorry to hear that Malcolm, a man doesn't mind spending a little money but when it's for nothing gets aggravating. I too went through something similiar in the past, not quite that bad but bad enough I didn't let them do the job. Luckily in my small town here we have a guy who does excellent work. Bends all his own stuff and cares about his work, that's the hard thing to find anymore, someone who cares about there work. Since your getting exhaust done I presume that means you got the engine mounted. How did you end up doing it?? Just curious how it turned out.

Motor mount update over here

viewtopic.php?t=279

You know I got to looking at how they were installing the exhaust (or trying to) and I don't see anyway to get to the transmission cooler lines on the transmission once an exhaust is in there? It's really tight under there.