Tried again desperately to get a good pattern, still no joy.
Then I went to lower the muffler rack, success, better than a full inch lower. I did however I forgot to order the heat mat to wrap it with. I did manage to add lightness to the bracket and can now disconnect from the header to tailpipe with pulling only 3 bolts and two nuts. 3 on header and 2 nuts loosened on gearbox mount.
I also tried to mount the shift gate on this gearbox but had two problems, first the lower gearbox mount brack occupies the lower mount hole. no biggie there , cut and add a doubler to make up the dimension. Second , a dealbreaker. the crossshaft was drilled out for a shifter . the size of the hole to large for me to continue.
Tomorrow, I'll probably pull the gearbox out and fix the gearbox seal leak and re-install. then fight another day on the original gearbox.
Dakazman