September 2004

I visisted Joe to see the progress of the engine rebuild. This is a shot of the case reassembled, with the crank and con rods connected.

Here's the new pistons and cylinders, 94 mm.

This is head after the machine work. The valves were 3-angle ground.

Another shot of the heads. Aren't the pretty?

Here's the flywheel after machining.

Well, after two hurricanes, Frances and Ivan, and a severe ear infection, I was finally able to work on the car again. I was able to finish the removal of the bottom of the ear. I took the ear apart a small section at a time. I used a cutting wheel, grinder and sometimes a pair of pliers to remove the metal. This shows the ear removed. If you'll notice the areas circled by marks-a-lot. These are areas that will need to be filled in with metal.

This is shot from inside the engine compartment. The areas that will be filled were caused by either the air hammer penetrating too far or the grinder/cutting wheel removing too much metal.

This is a shot from underneath.

This is showing the areas filled with metal. I used a MIG welder.

Here I have positioned the new ear and engine shelf. I still have move work to do to finish cleaning up this area, but I'm encouraged by the progress.

This is the outside shot.

This is the view looking down into the engine compartment. I'll need to 'massage' the new pieces into place, ie, hammer and bend to fit.

This is a shot of all of the pieces removed, the engine shelf in 3 pieces and the rest is the suspension ear in pieces.

I cut out a section of the firewall in the passenger's hell hole. This is an easy fix because the patch can be cut out, then welded back in from the cabin area.

This is shot from the cabin on the passenger's side.

This is a shot with the patch installed and All-metal body filler.

This is a shot of a patch for a section of the engine shelf on the driver's side.

This is the bracket and bolts that hold the rear lid torsion bar, before removal.

After removal. I used All-metal body filler to fill any imperfections.

This bracket is used to hold the fuel pump, above the front engine mounting point. I had to bend back into proper position.

Well, since I've decided to move the fuel pump to the front trunk, I decided to remove this bracket and clean up the engine compartment.