September 04: [Delayed Post] Getting there .....

Started Saturday [Sept 4th] morning scraping and cleaning the block. This is a very slow process but using a wire brush on the air drill helps tremendously! After about an hour, my sister's neighbor walked up carrying an engine stand! Just what I needed.

So, I removed the transmission and the bell housing, installed the engine onto the stand and disconnected the hoist ... life is good. Back to the cleaning process. I spent the better part of the day cleaning on it. I stopped mid evening and got the garage cleaned up. I now have a fresh canvas to dirty up tomorrow :O)

The exhaust manifold should have been taken off the donor car Saturday! I hope the gentleman was able to do it with no hang ups. I would understand if he did not get to it being it is the Holiday weekend. Crossing my fingers just in case. Still no big hurry since the gasket set has at least two weeks before arriving. Hot Heads will wait to place the order with his weekly order to save me the special shipping cost from CA to NC. Once it arrives in NC it comes to me here in VA. I wont be here :O( I have to go home sometime LOL I will be heading home towards the end of this coming week.

I think today [Sunday] I will see if I can find a reverse drill bit and give one of the manifold bolts a try. The worst that can happen is a trip to the machine shop witch is what I was planning anyway.

Getting there ....

Trans too ....

While I'm thinking of it I want to replace the freeze plugs while I have the engine out. Does anyone know if these are pretty much all the same standard size or is this going to be a treasure hunt? Also not the copper tube on the engine pic above that was cut and pinched off .... are the plugs to replace this fairly standard as well? I will look into this later. Another reminder for me is to research what is causing play in the shift lever and a possible fix for it. I am sure I would get use to hitting the gears but I would rather not have to.

Hope everyone had a fun holiday weekend!