[Tfrazier]

Thanks Simon,

Anything you can provide will be appreciated.

Tony

[BusNit]

I didn’t forget about you! These past few days have been demanding more of my time. I will take some pictures and measurements over the weekend.

[Tfrazier]

Okay,

Thought I would give everyone an update on the exhaust box replacement project. First of all, a HUGE thank you to Simon K. 
(aka BusNit). He really went out of his way to provide me with great information about the exhaust box on his coach. He sent me excellent pictures with dimensions and even took the time to put together two really fine drawings. Would have been much more of a guessing game without his help and certainly taken alot longer to design something from scratch. 
   
The first thing I did was to build a cardboard model based on Simon's drawing. Took it to the coach and tested the fit. Perfect. I decided to had a bit more a down angle at the exhaust opening. Hoping this might reduce some of the blow back on my toad. Not sure if this will work but I thought it would be worth a try.
       
Next step was to spend some time at in my buddy's metal shop, where I am the permanent, in-house junior apprentice. This basically means I have no skills whatsoever when it comes to the metal working, but I can do a lot of grunt work. We cut all of the pieces using his Plasma cutter and then tacked everything together. I had also purchased a new section of 5" exhaust pipe to replace the old pipe that was clamped to the muffler. 
       
Then we started the fit-up process on the coach, which turned out to be way more challenging than expected. The box itself fit great but getting to the correct alignment angle at the pipe to box connection, so that the box was properly aligned and centered in the cutout on the rear cap was a PIA. I did all of the  adjusting and aligning while buddy lay under the rear of the coach waiting to tack the pipe to the box.  Finally success.

Took the box back out, completing the weld process, prepped and painted.
       

Back under the coach to finish the install. There were no hangers or supports for the old setup so we decided to upgrade a bit and added a brace under the box to take some of the weight off the exhaust pipe. Took pictures along the way and posted some of them. Sorry not to include the final outside shot but we were so over working on it that after everything was complete, i forgot. I packed up and took the coach back to my storage facility. Still I think you can see what we did.
             

All told, I've got about 275.00 tied up in material. The real money would have been in the labor if I would've had to go outside of the friend zone. Total man hours was probably around 25
14 G steel sheet stock=170.00 (had to buy a whole sheet as I couldn't find any decent smaller scrap pcs. would have been way less otherwise.)
5" exhaust pipe = 40.00
5" exhaust clamp = 32.00
High heat primer and paint = 45.00
Carton of Marlboro Gold = 75.00 (labor cost)

Thanks to all who provided comments and direction. Double thanks to Simon. GURU'S Rock!!!!!
Tony

[Fulltiming]

Nice job!!!!

[hbens]

Excellent final chapter to this story. Great idea making a mockup from cardboard. I don't know if I would have thought of that. If not, I'm sure your sheet metal guy probably would have.
Thanks for the pics too.

[BusNit]

Looks amazing! Nice replication! Save me the cardboard cutouts. I might make one in stainless steel! (Gotta have some bling!)

[Richard]

Love ya brother! Want to keep you around for more posts like this.

Where are the supports while your buddy and you were under the coach?

[BusNit]

I can say that I personally will be installing a pit to work on my coach. I have the digger ready to go, waiting on the concrete saw guy and my concrete guy has seen the project. If all goes well, there will be no jack stands for me! Tony on the other hand will have to either head to my place or build his own service pit! As I look at his pics, the exhaust pipe exits the tail box at an angle as mine does. There are no supports aside from the round exhaust pipe for the box.

[Tfrazier]

Hi Richard,
No worries on the support. Had it all areas cribbed and we'll supported. Used my Jack stands on the rear and blocking on the front. It was kind of funny but when I first got to my friends shop, I told him I needed some time to get everything properly supported. He said not to worry about it and that I shouldn't waste the time. So had to explain to him Richard's definition of a bad day as it relates to 40k + pounds suddenly dropping on you. In his defense, he didn't really understand how far the coach could drop.
All safe,

Tony

[Richard]

Thank You!!!!!!!!!!!

I was looking at mine when an air bag let go, and it is shocking to see how quickly it hit the bottom of the suspension. It was less than the blink of an eye.

Thank you again for taking the precautions.