C9, Thanks for the reminder about soldering the cable ends BEFORE cutting the cable! I have been waiting for delivery of the driveshaft oval yoke from Speedway. It looks like it is intended to bolt to the top of the frame rails but then this may mess up the mating of the body to the frame so I will figure out how to bolt it in between the rails down a bit the thickness of any bolts I use for the support of the brake cables. I will post a picture of my results. It looks like there is no way around putting one cable on each side of the vertical part of the trans cradle. Today while waiting for parts I amused myself by port matching the crush aluminum ($35) exhaust gaskets using my Dremel grinder. Although DennyW gave me his secret procedure for using wet gaskets I bought the aluminum ones because they are reuseable so I torqued up the shorty headers and then took them off and ground away any flanges indicated by the impressions in the aluminum gaskets and then put them back. Since I paid (too much) to have the exhaust ports smoothed it only makes sense to match the gaskets to the ports and only a small amount of grinding was necessary. Yes I am not worried about rust of the Bebops body, that is a good point. Further examination of the body shows it holds up to clean lines almost everywhere except that while the rumble lid fits perfectly when closed, the gap at the bottom of the lid is noticeably wider on the right than on the left by about 1/8". As I say this is not noticeable when the deck is closed and probably is due to a slight misalignment of one of the rear quarter panels. When the decklid is closed the gap all around the lid is uniform. The fit of the doors is excellent. I have ordered my "rumble-seat-tank" from Rock Valley after sending a drawing and a full scale cardboard model of the tank to them. I am having it made of 14 gauge stainless rather than 16 gauge since there will only be a 3/8" plywood panel with foam on top to keep the dimensions like the original. I also added a 4"x1/4"x38" steel bar across the back of the 13.6 gallon tank with a 2" crush space gap by attaching it to the rumble seat brackets. Rock valley says they have one of their tanks which was in a rear end collision at 35 mph and has a large dent but it did not leak. So with 14 gauge stainless and a steel bar behind it I think I have done as much as I can for protection of the tank from a rear end collision and of course I also plan to add a rear Model-A bumper. I just need to get the brake cables finished and settle the trans cooler position and then I can take it to a muffler shop where I plan to use just cheap turbo mufflers, but I do not know how hard it will be to order up an H pipe, it depends on the shop. C9 I really appreciate your help and interest, thanks. Bob is right about the need to get the exhaust system installed and I have bookmarked the NSRA inspection requirements that Tech1 sent.

Don Shillady
Retired Scientist/teen rodder