Project #3 – Exhaust & Transmission Cross Member

Cause brakes and stopping the car is still not the priority yet

When you buy someone else’s hotrod, you should expect some poor design choices and feel lucky if there was any design in the choices made. When I looked under this car, I saw a few things that worried me other than the oil leaking on the headers. (yes; the Cadillac has headers)

1. The oil pan sits way to low to the ground
2. The drain plug in the oil pan is facing down so it can be ripped right out of the pan if it right
3. the transmission cross member looked like one off of JEGS designed for a Camaro, but slipped in upside down and 2″ from the street surface

Consequently, every time I drove into a parking lot or god forbid a speed bump, I would hear this horrible scaping only hoping that it was not the oil drain plug.

I’m pretty sure that one of Johns friends had made a decision to put a 3″ dual exhaust system on a car that was designed for a single exhaust and due to the size of the tubing and the design of the cross member, they would need to do something creative. While assessing the problem, I also discovered that the exhaust tubing was likely a tube kit as each joint was riddled with burn through holes. Don’t get me wrong, I could not have welded it any better, but this was a turning point.

First I located a original cross member from a junk yard in Spanaway (not a good idea either, but we will roll with it) and refinished it.

It seemed like a good idea at the time and I should have asked a couple more key questions like “why is there only one hump in the cross member?”.

I then proceeded to disconnect the exhaust system, install the new cross member and re-connect the 3″ exhaust…….oh F@#$. If you guessed it wouldn’t, fit; then you were spot on. The cross member being from a car with a single exhaust didn’t meld to well. On the other side, the exhaust was full of holes, so off to the exhaust shop to build me a new 2.5″ exhaust system that fit with the crossmember.

Sometimes you have the opportunity to spend a little more and do it right (like build a new cross member at the exhaust shop) and sometimes you say; “nope, I have spend enough”. The challenge of course is that you will likely go back and do it over to make it right.

It works well, there are no more holes and I can drive over speed bumps, but one day; I will take apart again and do it right.