I also had to cut the exhaust. Most vehicles are designed to pull straight back, and down to remove the tranny. Leave it to Ford to design around it so it wont fit. If its been out before, hopefully someone beat the body seam flat, and removed some of the heat shielding. If thats the case, you should be able to jack up the front, and tilt the back of the tranny down and angle it out. I would imagine it wouldn't be bad at all on a car lift. Anyway, I had a chunk of 2" ID pipe (Its either 2" or 2.25") and I cut out a section of my pipe. When all done, I slid that new pipe over the chunk I cut out, and welded it on with a wire feed welder. It turned out great, with no leak at the weld. What did happen though, is it turned the connection at the exhaust manifold a bit, and caused a leak. I was able to tighten that bold enough to get it to go away. I've never ordered a whole clutch kit, so I couldn't tell you if it comes with a throwout bearing. I know the slave cylinders do. Why do you want the whole clutch kit any way? If it works fine now, just get a new friction disk, and have your flywheel resurfaced.