z :: finish the fight

It's so close I can almost taste it.

I have almost every part I need to complete the car. The engine cradle arrives tomorrow. Lots of progress has been made since the last post:

ENGINE



The first pic is the plate that goes between the pump and the block, the second is the bolted on water pump. You can see the oil pressure sender on the right side of that pic.

The engine is pretty much ready to go. The gauge senders, and water pump have been bolted on, although admittedly I had a rather crude moment where I impact gunned a pair of water pump bolts into the block. The threads were so gummed up on the inside, and there was no way in hell that I was going to pull the entire cam chain cover off to clean them up. In retrospect, I should have cut groves in an extra bolt, then used it to "clean" the hole like I would have with a tap. No guarantee that it would work, but at least I wouldn't be going at it with the caveman method. -1 style points.

TRANSMISSION



Went to Carquest and bought a new transmission mount today, although the JTR crossmember (which has also arrived) will have to be drilled out to accommodate the two-hole setup of the Ford mount. I also ordered a new speedometer sending unit, which should arrive in the next day or two. Not sure if it'll get here in time, but that's ok...speedometers are for wusses.


More importantly, I have to figure out my clutch setup. I got the parts in today, now I just have to figure out how to get everything mounted up to the car, including the custom work on the clutch slave cylinder. This is the biggest thing that remains to be done.

CHASIS





Made huge progress in this department, and damn did it take a lot of blood, sweat, and tears. Yesterday, I spent lots of time on the creeper and in the engine bay pulling the front crossmember off. When I finally got it off, I spent more time cutting off the stock mounts and grinding the welds off, then painting the whole thing with 4-5 coats of primer. Today I bolted it back up, again with lots of swearing, as the front sway bar apparently has some preload in it and is almost impossible to bolt on without being detached at all its points. The good news is...it looks great! No L6 mounts...no problem.

Other than that I'm just going to show off a few parts I got in the mail:

JTR radiator setup. Sexy!


Driveshaft flange. Oh Frank Wallace. I miss you, and will see you soon:



14" three way catalytic converter with air pipe, Hooker Aero-Chamber 3" muffler. The muffler came with heart shaped stickers that read "I love my HOOKER headers." Excellent. I'll be going with a 2.5" into 3" single exhaust, which may end up being excessively loud. Time will tell




This is a new sticker I bought in Taiwan! It reads "NEVER GIVE UP. Life will find its way out." I hung it by the clock in the Future to remind me never to give up!!