Last few weeks have been busy with the holiday, so before today it was just lots of little odds and ends done:
- Fresh set of spark plugs
- Made spark plug wires, installed the M&H plug wire brackets. Looks pretty slick, I'll get a better pic of the engine bay cleaned up.
- Installed headers - new header bolts to replace the mismatched set I had.
- Finished up the last final touches on the rear brakes, routed the hoses a bit more to my liking.
- Removed the pitman arm from the old p/s box.
- Installed the rear tires and removed the carb from the intake to get ready to install the engine.
Here it is back down on its rear wheels for the first time in a while:
That was yesterday afternoon. I've been watching the weather for weeks to find a couple rain-free days to get the engine installed. Friday and Sat looked good. No rain forecast from 4pm Friday to Midnight Sat/Sunday. I spent Friday digging around the garage finding all the stuff I'd need to get it back on all 4 wheels. Quite an ordeal. I hadn't organized the parts too well in the beginning because this all started out as a 'replace the bulkhead connector' project and I wasn't planning on blowing the whole car apart. Besides a couple small items I can add later (torsion bar spring clips) I was ready for an early start Saturday.
Weather started out great, warm but not too hot. The driveway outside my garage gets morning shade, so I was nice and cool. I figured I would hustle to get the engine located and the body down around it, that seemed like a reasonable halfway point, then see what kind of time I was making and plan out the rest of the day.
I pushed the car out of the garage and into the driveway, chocked the wheels, dug out the hoist and...spent the next 25 mins adding oil. Annoying, but as infrequently as I use it, not worth replacing the cylinder.
Pushed the engine and trans out on my trusty dolly and got it into position.
Hooked up the hoist and started lifting the front. Getting the dolly positioned roughly under the car was a lot of fiddling, but got it done around 11:30. At that point I felt pretty good and ahead of schedule. Bringing the body down was a slow process. I ended up putting an extra bend in the dipstick tube for a bit of clearance. Next time I'll consider removing the passenger side header, I think that would have saved me some time and a few dings in the engine bay. Shouldn't be too noticeable from the top, though.
That's when my trusty dolly decided to take a hard left. Literally.
With the dolly collapsed the rear k-frame mounts were out of position, and the front mounts were angled in such a way that I wasn't going to be able to get the bolts started.
Time for plan B. I put my jack under the back end of the dolly and tried to raise it up enough to get the bolts started. No luck. The dolly wasn't going up evenly.
What ended up working eventually, was a combination of jacking up the dolly and raising the body with the hoist. Not ideal as it was higher off the ground than I wanted, but it worked. At that point everything was high enough that I was able to get jack stands under the rear k-frame mounts and get the trans crossmember installed. With the engine and trans supported I could lower the jack and get the dolly out. Finally I put a length of c-channel steel on my jack and bridged across the k-frame tubes to support the whole k-member so I could remove the jack stands and access the rear bolt holes. Bolts went in and I could breathe a sigh of relief. Jack stands back under the car and I went back in the house for a well-earned refreshment.
It's around 2:30 now, and the sun wasn't messing around. I haven't been this exhausted and sweaty in a long time, but feeling good that the k-frame was fully in. Oh, I forgot to mention that I had to remove the front suspension (LCA, shock, knuckle, strut rods, brake assembly) to get the jack stands under the k-frame.
So, to get it back on 4 wheels I needed to reinstall the suspension, grease and install the torsion bars, tighten up the t-bar adjusters 'some,' install the pitman arm, drag link and tie rods.
I figured it's only 3pm, I had a manageable amount of work ahead of me, and 8 hours of dry weather, so I cooled off in the house until around 4:30.
Back at it, but at a reasonable pace, figuring I had plenty of time to get everything done. Around 6pm I've made some good progress, but now things are getting a bit cloudy and I hear thunder in the distance. I pick up the pace and by 7pm I have the suspension and torsion bars done on both sides, just need to install the pitman arm and drag link so I can get it rolling. Then the rain kicks in. Not quite a downpour, but more than a drizzle, I'm freaking out a little because I have all new wiring in the dash and cluster and no windshield. My wife and kids come out and help collect tools and throw a tarp over the front as I'm scrambling to get the drag link and tie rods hooked up. No time to get the pitman arm in, so getting it in the garage could be interesting!
We took our time (relatively speaking) massaging the front tires and finally got the car pushed in just before 8. Whew!
I think I'm going to give myself a day or 2 before I do any more work on the car. ;)