crappy bridge and wishbone (3 link), and by crappy, i'm talking poor welding/not welded completely, especially the bridge, and the material was crap. the tubing on the bridge was thin as hell.
i'm redoing the exhaust...i sectioned two inches off the manifold, allowing the manifold to sit higher, and not hang lower than the frame. here's pics of the test fitting of the manifold.
here's a side by side comparison of the stock manifold, and the sectioned manifold
here's the "new" muffler and tailpipe. using a stock tacoma muffler i had laying around for over 5 years now. the welds look like crap due to several reasons, but they are as strong as they are ugly, and i wont have to worry about leaks.
kinda hard to see, but here's a pic of the frame, from the differential to the front. notice that the exhaust does not hang beneath the frame at any time.
one problem that came up that i thought i could get around was the tranny crossmember hitting the exhaust. i could've just left it alone, but i didn't want to risk messing anything up, since it was a real tough fit, with the cat and tubing flanges being millimeters away from the x-member.
now when i fabricated this notch i had the right idea in mind. unfortunately, the execution was WAY far off. i had lots of problems, again lol. had i done a few things differently, this may have turned out better. so laugh it up, post it on DR's crappy fab if you have to. i know it's crap, but for the time being, it gets the job done, and hopefully i get a chance to re-do it in the future. but for now it does the job quite nice, and was exactly what was needed for the exhaust.
now, i tried to weld this up a while back, but only managed to blow a hole through the tube, as the material was too thin to weld up with a bead. i cut the bad crap off, and started fresh.
i tried to weld it again, but even with the heat all the way down, i blew another hole in it, so i resorted to tack welding, which worked out great. now all is left is to grind the tacks down, tack any remaining holes, grind, paint, and install.
so far, here's what i got done
http://i295.photobucket.com/albums/mm136/preggonancy/0203001631.jpg