Tempest67:
Its all good! That Blazer pedal assembly was perfect for the shape of the Fargo floor and firewall. Getting it adjusted to obtain full throttle was just a matter of a couple of quick slices with a cutoff wheel, bending the rods a bit and then welding up the slices.
Joedoh:
Thanks! Hanging out would be a blast, after all it’s only a 19 hour drive to your place (one way! yikes!). On 2nd thought, hanging out with you is likely a very bad idea, as I would undoubtedly return home with another old truck to delight my wife.
With that steering and brake assembly cut and fitted to its final shape it was time to pull the cab off (removing the cab means far easier access for a lot of stuff). The first thing I tackled was the exhaust.
My S10 muffler was shot, but the rest of the system was in good shape. When I was placing my last parts order I noticed that a Walker muffler model 18112 was about 10 inches shorter than my old muffler. Since I had shifted the drivetrain back 8 ½ inches I figured a shorter muffler might make things a little easier to fit in place. I spent about 3 hours separating the various pipes and cleaning the flange surfaces and then I started to assemble the system. Imagine my surprise when the new muffler fit without any modifications to the pipes at all. No bending, no cutting, no welding. Nothing. Pure 100% dumb luck, but I’ll take it! Cautionary Note: I don’t know what this muffler sounds like, but it was advertised as a universal stock replacement type. I’m gonna detail how easy it was to do this basically stock system with a typical drivetrain shift to the rear, as it’s not Fargo specific and it applies to any S10 swap.
While the pipes/muffler/cat/Y-pipe all fit together perfectly, the support hangers between the muffler and the Y-pipe were no longer in the right spots due to me sliding the drivetrain back.
The hanger at the inlet to the muffler just needed to be slid back on the frame and 2 holes had to be drilled to mount it. Since the frame rises there I had to take about an inch out of the height of the hanger:
The hanger at the rear of the catalytic converter looked like it would be a little trickier, but in the end all I had to do was extend its length and weld a nut into the frame to mount it. There is a factory hole that lines up nicely to catch the little hook on the hangers, so only one hole had to be drilled to mount this one:
The original muffler had a hanger with 2 of those heavy rubber loops, likely due to its size (the original was massive), and the rubber loops were fastened to the muffler by a steel band. The new muffler is tiny in comparison, but to use the same steel band it was just a matter of shortening the band, recurving it and then bending fresh ends:
There is one more hanger that needs modification (at the front of the cat), but this will be far easier to do when I have the truck up on the hoist so I will show this later on. While the system was apart, I took the time to break free the downstream O2 sensor in the catalytic converter as it had thrown a code prior to disassembly, and there was no easier time to get it loose than now. With the exhaust sorted out, I set the various components aside as it will be easier to do stuff like brake and fuel system with more access room.
More to come!