Oops!

After hearing the engine run for the first time, it became obvious that I could no longer ignore the gaping hole in one of the exhaust header pipes.

I saw it before I bought the truck and thought, "that's a problem for future me to solve."  Well, the right-now me isn't liking hot exhaust gas blowing up and burning a nearby spark plug wire and my face.  So, I did the sensible thing and got out my Lincoln welder and proceeded to fix that puppy good.

Oh yeah!  That did the trick.  Now I have a more uniform nozzle for the explosively hot exhaust gas to exit the pipe.  Seriously though, I turned my welder down to the lowest setting and barely kissed the pipe with an arch and whole entire thing almost turned to dust.  I think the surface rust on both sides of the pipe is actually what is holding it together.  Well, the welder obviously wasn't going to fix my problem here, so I had to dig a little deeper into my repertoire.

Ten minutes, a used aluminium can, and some stainless hose clamps were all I needed to get back in action.  Aluminum melts at 1,200 degrees F, so we should be good, right?