I have had a tick for 5 years now, Jerry diagnosed it as a leak in the passenger exhaust manifold. 5 years, hasn't changed, so I didn't worry about it.
I tried to use my exhaust jack on my last wheeling trip, and I couldn't get enough pressure to lift the Trooper I was helping out. Too many leaks in my old rusty exhaust.
Took it into a custom shop, running all new pipe, eliminating all of the flanges from the y-pipe back. Flowmaster 40 is about done for. Starting to rust through the center weld seam. My truck has not been in salt since I bought her, but the exhaust is completely toast. I am having them do both exhaust manifolds as well. I am going to order a pair of manifolds on ebay, send them in to Jet-hot and have them ceramic coated in red. This way, I will never worry about manifolds again!
All said and done, with parts, new flex coupling, new muffler, manifolds coated, about $1050 or so. Seems crazy, but its a lot of rerouting the exhaust to clear the SFIFS, flange eliminations. The manifolds will cost me about 350 after coating. He is also cutting some tubing to fit so that I can 'delete' the Cat if I so desire. As a shop, he cannot do that, but it was cheaper for me to get an entire stick of tubing and there is enough left for him to cut and weld flanges on that will just happen to fit in there.
I am worried that I will lose my distinctive sound, but it needs to be done