[Oldsguy]

Very nice find! Congratulations on getting it and welcome to our site. The exhaust ticking sound may be actually exhaust valves since it is under load and not all the time and toward the front (closer to the engine). That is just a sign of an old engine with lots of miles. There was someone here that polished and buffed up the original paint on his car and showed some pictures as well about six months ago. Now, who was that? gearheads78, Richard was that you? Anyway someone may pipe up about that and be able to refer you to him. It did wonders for his car's appearance and that deep green is a nice color. I really like the big cars, my favorite color is green, and love the 455s so I am an automatic fan of your car already. You should have no difficulty running true duals all the way back. I think you can get some good exhaust manifolds (or maybe even headers!) without too much trouble since your steering box if forward of the control arms (front steer). The earlier cars had the steering box behind them and it is hard to get headers to fit. I would definitely run the exhaust as you described, up/over the axle and out the back behind the wheels. You may find you fourth wheel cover here, just post a good close up of one of the other three and see. Man, I can't stop typing as you car really gets my juices flowing, nice car.