Sparky-Watts
Banned
Ok, so I'm easily excited. Finally gonna install my headpipe on the YJ. When I had the lift put on, I also got a T-case drop. The headpipe is attached to the T-case skid, and dropping the skid pulled the pipe down and against the front driveshaft, which eventually wore a hole in it. I had been looking all over Wichita for one, but everyplace but two that I went to said, "We don't carry that, you'll have to get it at the dealer, and it's part of the catalytic converter, so you'll have to buy that, too." One place that said they could order it was O'Reilly's. They showed it to me in the parts book as a separate piece (which it is) and said they could get it for $89. I told them to order it. That was back in April. A week later, I went to see if it was in yet. The idiots behind the counter swore up and down that they don't carry it, can't get it, and don't even have a book that shows it. I argued with them longer than any reasonable person should who's ever been to an O'Reilly's store, then decided to come back another day and talk to the dude that ordered it for me. A few days later, he was there and I asked him about it. (Mind you, this was less than 2 weeks since I talked to him before). Nope, he said, we don't carry that, we can't order it, and we don't even have a book that shows the part. WTF?!?!? I uttered a few choice words that would get a network fined by the FCC, and left. Later, out of frustration, I called the stealership. Yeah, they could get it. $189, prepaid. Ok, I told them to order it, and gave them my credit card number. A couple days later, I checked on my credit card balance, and saw that they had charged me $249! I called them and asked "WTF?!?", only didn't use just the abbreviated letters. They said it cost $189, but they charge $60 for special order items! Never in our previous conversation did they ever say anything about that, or I would have told them what they could do to themselves and the horse they rode in on. So, I called my bank, had them reverse the charges (which didn't cost me anything, fortunately). Later that evening, I did what I should have done from the get-go, I ordered it from Quadratec for $118 with free shipping. Now this weekend I'll be in Jeeper heaven working under the Mighty Whitey YJ, and soon it will be quiet again! 8)
I was finished in about an hour and a half. It actually went a lot smoother than I expected, though I did run into a few snags. First of all, I was hoping the point on the T-case skid that it attached to would be removable, so I could lift it up to it's original position, but it wasn't. So, I ended up having the bracket from the head pipe just sitting on top of the mount instead. Next was the overall length. Well, it wasn't so much a problem with the length as it was with the slip fit on the cat. There is still a tailpipe clamp on it that I was never able to remove when I gutted the cat, so it was constricted at about 3 inches into the cat. I could have bent a hanger or two on back, but that would have put it too close to other movable parts, so instead I whipped out the sawzall for some fun! :sawzall: I only had to take off about an inch and a half to get it to fit without too much stress on the hangar system. The last problem I ran into was with the O2 sensor. The threaded hole was a bit further around to one side than on the original pipe, and the wires wouldn't allow the sensor to reach far enough to get the threads started straight. So, I pulled the electrical connector off the little bracket it sits on, trimmed off the plastic tab that holds it in place, and zip-tied it back on to the bracket. I was quite surprised at how easily the sensor came out of the old pipe. It was caked into a solid lump with baked on mud, so much so that you couldn't see the actual sensor or the notches for the wrench to fit on. I chiseled away (very carefully) enough rock hard mud to see where to put the wrench, and expecting a struggle nearly broke my hand when it turned with very little resistance! I could unscrew it all the way with my bare hand, no wrench necessary. When I was done, I took it for a test drive, and it was quieter than it ever had been since I owned it. 
