Ah - I ditched the turtle and cut between it and the center muffler. Maybe I'll give it another try sometime. I was hoping to loose the turtle as well since it's rather big and heavy and already has more than a couple rock marks in it, but at least getting rid of the low hanging exhaust pipes at the diff is a plus.

Still, others have reported they did the same cut as I did - see the pics above as an example - with no problems. While sound is subjective and what one person likes another may not, the fact is I still had 2 failures due to the exhaust heat on hot summer days. Not a problem when on the highway, but at 5 mph or sitting idling on the trail the heat killed the plastic air intake/exhaust.

Cavet Emptor.

 

The sound would not be for everyone, for sure. For me, I still wouldn't have done it any different. I'm surprised to hear you melted things -- I've not suffered any of that, and my truck idles quite often while in the woods. Zero problems because of it. Perhaps it's the angle of turndown you did vs what I did, the world may never know.

If I'm on the highway I don't hear the exhaust much at all.... over the tires.

As stated, it's all subjective and personal opinion. I do absolutely LOVE the noise it makes when I give it a boot-full of throttle.

Dave

 

I dug up a couple pics of my exhaust hack. Pretty similar to what was shown before so maybe my Rover is just 'special'. (some days it certainly seems like it...)



More pics here-
Exhaust Mod by Don Happel | Photobucket

You'll see where I put it back together with s/s band clamps. I couldn't drop the entire aft section of my system as a single part because of the welded on rear bumper supports that pass beneath the rear mufflers so I had to make extra cuts. Not a big deal and easier than cutting the supports out and welding them back on later. You can also see some of the melted air lines, though it's hard to tell what the pics are unless you've seen it in person.

 

Well, it's been a while since I made a post! ... mainly because I've been lazy and have done nothing!

Well, I finally decided to get going on my lockers. Seeing as it had been a year and I still hadn't gotten to pull my diffs, I decided to outsource this work and let a shop do it. I don't generally do this, however I felt it was worth it since I clearly was not making it a priority job to get done myself.

So, I got the air compressor all wired up:


I cut out the holes with a dremel for the switches in the knee panel under the steering wheel:


And overall I really like how it came out:


I dropped my truck off on Sunday to get the lockers done this week. I admit, I'm now kind of excited. It's been about 3 years since I had a rig locked front and rear!

I pulled the switched power and illumination inside the cabin from the passenger side cigarette lighter port. The only thing that generally runs is my dashcam. The whole setup works mint!

Now, let's see how they do with the diffs!

Dave aka Ghan

 

Hi I realize this is an old post but I hope you still use this forum. I was wondering what spacer width did you go with? Looking to give my car a wider look and space for when the bigger tires come.

 

Spacers really should only be used to correct replacement wheel offsets. If they are to be used, keep it minimal. Firstly spacers increase stress on wheel bearings. Second, moving wheels outward can cause rubbing issues up front and even in the rear if you go outwards enough.

 

I did 1.25" spacers from https://motorsport-tech.com/ - I had zero issues with them, nor my bearings. Previous poster is correct, it's adding more leverage against the bearings, but even with how badly I abused it in the woods, everything held up fine!

Hope this helps,

Dave aka Ghan

 

Well its not a matter of holding up, its more a longevity thing. The bearings will wear fast. If you have good ones, its not like they will break right after installation. But instead of getting 150k miles out of the rear bearings you may only get half that.