I ordered the magnaflow cats #94106 (I think that's the #)...anyway the loud ones.

I wanted to just cut out the rear main two cats on my four cat system (2002 f150 5.4L) and install the magnaflows in thier place, but I ran into some install issues.

How are you guys welding these things in there...or clamping them for that matter. There is no room under there to get at them. There is no way to fit a gun up in there to fully weld the top of the pipes/cats because of the heat shields and such. The driver's side heat shield won't come out without destroying it or disassembling other stuff to make room for it to slide out. After you cut out the factory cat, there is only like a half of an inch of pipe left to clamp to so that's not a good option. How are you guys doing this?

I don't want some ghetto rigged job or a leaky half welded install. The only option I see is to unbolt the exhaust from the manifolds and cut the exhaust free before the muffler and just pull the whole thing out to weld it up on the workbench!?!?!?

It's really frustrating because I already have the cats bought and here, but install looks like it will take several hours. There has got to be a better way to do this. Any help please or pics of your install would be appreciated.

Thanks

 

The space is very limited if your doing just a cat replacement, most people let the shops to the work and in most cases the shop will unbolt the main cross member for access, or remove the exhaust from the pre-cats to the cut off Y pipe since most of the time they are bending an entire new system and weld it out the truck. This is mostly why people let the shop do the cat work.