Well, I got my new exhaust on, and it sounds great. It has a nice rumble to it, thanks to a Mopar Performance cam. No one will mistake it for a slant six. LOL.
I was going to take it for a shake-down run, but the power steering belt was squealing pretty good, so I turned around and came home. I had had the pump rebuilt, and thought I might have to remove it and have the rebuilder give it another go. One of my friends, who is also a professional mechanic, dropped in to look my car over. I was telling him about my PS problem. He looked at my set-up and said he thought my PS belt was too narrow, and could be bottoming out in the pulley "V". I looked up the belt applications on RockAuto, and my friend was right. I ordered and changed to the proper wider belt, and everything is good now.
Since we have not had any amount of snow yet ( with accompanying road salt ), I decided to make my maiden run into town for fresh fuel, about a 15 mile round trip. The car ran down the highway flawlessly at 55-60 mph. It just floated along; what a great feeling! I got a couple of compliments on the car; one at the gas station, and one at my local Tim Horton's. With perfect timing, I arrived home just as a few initial snow flakes were floating around. With the Polara and the Grand Cherokee both safely tucked inside, it is snowing fairly hard right now, with the salt trucks showing up eventually. The car still has a couple of little things to address over the winter down time, but overall, I am pleased with her maiden voyage. I can hardly wait until spring.