It would have been a lot easier to cut if it was one of the rotting sections, but this was a doubled-up section of Not Rusty At All pipe, which made things a little trickier. Fortunately it was only about 1" or so in length, stuck into a continuous outer piece, so that when I was prying on this inner piece, it would give, and the outer piece would not, so when it was all over, the outer piece wasn't really distorted much at all.

I'd have to look it up to be sure, but since it'* on an SSEi, it might be oversized compared to that of an SE/LE and/or N/A versions. (Would they have 2" pipes?)

Okay, WillWren now has a snapshot of the finished repair to upload whenever he gets a chance, and then I can add that to the bottom of the original posting, to go with that injured-Vise-Grips shot that I've already plugged in...

acg, you have great story telling abilities! Ever thought of writing a book or something?? I really enjoyed reading that post...REALLY...Anyone else see this???

Thanks! Unfortunately the ol' $DAY_JOB gets in the way of a Great Literary Career...

I probably told this one before some time ago, but what the heck, you've reminded me of it again...

My buddy Paul and I are working on the 455 he'* just installed in his car. The fan shroud is not yet reinstalled. This fact will be significant shortly.

He gets out a little portable Sun engine analyzer, about the size of a large pocket calculator with about six different big long leads that connect to various places on the engine. He hooks them all up, balances the analyzer on the fender and fires up the engine.

As we rev the engine, we don't notice that the blast of air from the fan is blowing around the wires to the analyzer. As I lean over the engine, out of the corner of my eye I notice something moving, and we both jump backwards as the leads suddenly begin rapidly disappearing into the engine. As they finish wrapping themselves around the fan, the analyzer leaps off the fender into the engine compartment and begins flying in circles *WHAPITY*WHAPITY*WHAPITY* around the engine. Finally the last of the leads tears loose from the analyzer, and our heads rotate like spectators at a tennis match as the analyzer comes sailing out and lands with a crash on the hood of a car two spaces down. "I'd better shut the engine off!" says Paul.

I wish WillWren would; I sent him a followup photo of the finished repair so we could upload it to this thread. Yo, Will? Checked the GMail account by any chance?

(Hmm. Maybe I can find a place to hide a couple of photos on the corporate website here where nobody will notice, and just point my article links there...)