Thanks again for all the compliments. It really means alot.
I had to pull the trans back out. It was having some issues. I finally got everything running and took it for a test drive. The trans wouldn't shift out of first gear. I called the guy that built it. He came down and checked a few things last Thurs. night. He ended up removing the valve body, took it home with him to fix it, and brought it back on Saturday to reinstall it. It had a couple stuck plungers in it. He put it back in, we tested it with the truck on jackstands. Everything went as planned, so we set it back down to take another test drive. We started out of the driveway, it started pulling, then shuutered a little bit, then just quit pulling altogether. I coasted to the next driveway and tried to put it in reverse.......nothing, back in Drive....nothing. We pushed it back to the house. The builder said the converter is probably shot. It's new, so getting it warrantied shouldn't be a problem.
The company wants this one first so they can make sure it's a faulty converter before sending a new one. The builder also wants the whole trans as well, so he can make sure there isn't another problem. So, Monday night I tried to drop it out, but after a couple hours of wrestling with it, I discovered it wasn't coming out, because the x-pipe in the exhaust was in the way. so I wrestled it back in place and stuck a couple bolts back in to hold until I got the sawzall from my brother.
Last night I made the second attempt, and it worked so much better with the exhaust out.
I cut the exhaust about 8-10" in front of the mufflers, then unbolted the collectors and the whole section just dropped right out. I'm going to pick up some header collectors to have the exhaust removable instead of welding it back solid.
I'm meeting the trans builder on Saturday morning to drop off the trans and converter. It shoould only take a couple days to get everything back, then I can stab it back in. Of course, I still have to take it to the muffler shop again to have the collectors installed and make sure everything lines up. If I hadn't already spent so much over my budget, this would be the time to install a new trailing arm crossmember, and have the exhaust re-routed up in the frame rails. That's not happening right now, though. At least with the front section removeable now, that wouldn't be too hard or expensive to go back and re-do later.