Headers Are Finished!

After many hours of work, the headers are finished!

These were quite the challenge to take on as I have never done anything at all like this, and it was tough at first. Double, triple and quadruple checking everything as still getting things wrong and having to go back and redo them. But, as time went by, they definitely got easier.

They aren't perfect, or show pieces, but they are beautiful to me. Here are the pictures!

Because I wasn't as concerned about maximzing performance as I was about having something that worked well, I opted to weld the pipes on the inside. They will no doubt outperform the factory truck manifolds that were on the car when I purchased it, and I have a lot more clearance around the bolts for installation.

I also found it was easier to weld up the collector if I cut the end off and did it from the inside. A LOT easier. Since I wasn't worried about dressing the welds and wanted to keep that homemade look, it was a super easy decision.

I also stripped, cleaned up, primed and painted the inside tailgate panel. It looks much better. Still see signs of some of the old dents that I just couldn't work out, but so much better.

This was the first of the large panels (including the third row seats) that I need to refinish. The seats I think I will end up having soda blasted as it will be a ton of work to strip those down. I'll have to pull the out again and decide for certain.

I also had a chance to work on the body a little bit. Still trying to get the body line on the driver's side right. not easy with all of the dings and dents on the body line itself.

So, I took a break for that and start stripping the passenger's side. The doors look pretty good, but the rear quarter was tagged at some point in the past. Ugh! The body work was awful. They at least tried to pull the dents out some. Why pull them when they could have easily bumped them from the inside without drilling holes I'll never know.

And the same is true for the body line at the lower area of the quarter panel. They created it out of Bondo. Nearly an inch think in places. Best part: It wasn't necessary. They built it up without rhyme or reason. There was so much Bondo, that after 45 minutes I still haven't cleared it all from the quarter. Once I get that out, I can finally get a look at what I'm really facing.

Anyhow, time to call it a night!