Having finally rested up from my recent vacation, we had a relatively productive day. The plan for the day was for Grant to start weaving in the wiring harness, while I took care of the right-rear brake caliper. Before we get to that, though, here's some gratuitous bling courtesy of Holley carburetors:

Please note that I am in no way aggrieved by gratuitous bling. While we are not concentrating on aesthetics overly much, its nice to at least look good without any extra effort or cost.

The engine has been residing in the chassis for a few weeks, and the wiring harness needed to go in as well, so Grant started trying to weave the wires to where they needed to go. There were also a number of little plastic bits and fancy hoses that also belong to the engine.

While I was poking around looking at the few last little parts, Grant discovered the SniperEFI control panel. Yep, this 1960's era car as an electronic control panel to control the carburetor. What it controls I do not know. That can wait. It looks like its going to be a bossy little brat: "DO NOT ATTEMPT TO START THE VEHICLE UNTIL YOU ARE TOLD TO DO SO..."

Bossy!

Untangling the wiring harness was a one man job, so I went to the back of the car to finally fix the off-center brake caliper. If you look closely, you will see the either the caliper is offset to the left, or if you prefer, the rotor is off to the right. It doesn't matter - it needed to be centered. Being as the caliper is the only part of the pair that can be adjusted, I was assigned to do just that.

This turned out to be one of those non-unique situations that required both metric and the far better standard sized wrenches. One wrench was 15mm and the other was 9/16th. It took an embarrassing amount of time to get the caliper off, get the correct set of washers in place, and get it all put back together again. That said, I could probably knock 15-20 seconds off if I had to do it again. 

Meanwhile, the harness was being untangled and routed to where all of the connectors, etc. placed into.... well, place.

I knew for about a minute what this gauge measures, then quickly forgot. Furl pressure, probably.

Frustrated with the wiring, Grant decided to mount the radiator. The build manual was next to useless on this - I believe that part of the manual has not yet been updated from the Mk 3 cars. Fortunately, Grant is not in the least beholden to the manual - he figured it out pretty quickly figured it out. It was a task made easier by the fact that we are pretty much out of aluminum. Process of elimination, right?

We (well, I) ran out of time at that point. 

With the wee bit of time left, we put the O2 sensors into the headers.
 

Work time for this step:  6 hours.

Unproductive time: None. 

Frustration Level: 4/10.

Total time of build: 100 hours.

About the Unannounced Hiatus

So, yeah, there hasn't been a new posting for awhile. The reason for that all comes down to having a balanced life - it can't all be cars and airplanes, no matter how much I want it to be. In this case, I was towing  around a 10,000-ish lb. travel trailer. That's normally not that hard to do - the V-8 F-150 Crew Cab does a fine job. When it is hard to tow is when we're climbing (or descending) the slopes of the West Virginia mountains. 

West Virginia contains over 1679 named mountains and is almost entirely mountainous. In fact, more mountainous land exists per square mile in West Virginia than in any other state. It’s easy to see why the state motto, Montani Semper Liberi, translates to “Mountaineers are always free.”

We weren't staying in WV, though - we were heading to eastern Virginia for a few days, then another few days in North Carolina. There came a point when it seemed that there simply weren't any flat-ish roads to be found in 500 sq. miles. I never enjoy tugging that camper around, but dragging it up a mountain at a blistering 30 mph makes it even worse.

"Other than that, Mrs. Lincoln, how was the play?"

Quite nice, actually. Family reunions are okay, and a reunion with a family that recently bought an awesome boat and a lakefront home goes that extra mile, so to speak.

I did have a bit of a disagreement with my dog Cassie - she was adamantly opposed to taking the steep grade path. I won that battle, but it didn't take long before I was regretting not taking the Shallow Grade Hiking path.

The tiny beach was barely enough reward for the hike.

Scenic, though.

When we did finally get back to working on the car, we decided to finish up the hydraulics, by which I mean the brakes and clutch. Three (somewhat chintzy looking) plastic "jugs" were mounted on the firewall. Hydraulic fluid was then introduced to its new home.

There's always (ALWAYS!!) one guy that wants to play the fool. The left rear brake turned out to be that guy.

The next task was to remove the power steering pump. Apparently I should have found and bought a "power-steering front axle" as well. No one caught my error, so I had to pony up an as yet unknown amount of dollars to buy an idler. And yes, it cost a bit more to buy one that looks like the rest of them.

The next chore was to label the plugs on the distributor cap. That was (finally!) well within my limited capabilities. Note that I am NOT complaining - every single thing I do on this project is for the first time - I'm here to learn!

Work time for this step:  6 hours.

Unproductive time: None. 

Frustration Level: 2/10.

Total time of build: 94 hours.

Getting the engine out of the way

To be fair, the engine didn't take up too much room in the shop, but it would look a lot nicer if it was nestled down into the engine bay of the chassis. It would also indicate that we are almost to the point where the collection of pieces and parts coalesce into an actual operable motor vehicle. There's still a long way to go, but I can't help but view this as a significant turning point. Plus, the shop floor is getting less cluttered with stuff.

So, yeah, today's post is about stuffing that massive engine into a not-all-that-large chassis. That would clear up a whole lotta floor!

There's not much to say about putting the engine in - pictures will suffice to tell the story.

But first... having been out of town for more than a week, Grant was able (and presumably willing) to get more of the aluminum panels riveted in.

The tunnel covers are not yet riveted - we're likely going to need to move those pieces around a little bit.

I received a legitimate level of criticism over the two holes that I drilled through the aluminum but completely missed any steel on the other side. I filled the extraneous holes with rivets, but that was not sufficient to hide them from the boss.

It was somewhat redeeming to find these little mistakes made by Grant:

I didn't have to say anything about them - he saw me see them. Good enough for me.

Next in was a black steel plate that will sit under the engine. Easy-peasy.

The engine was positioned for entry.

Here's another example of a easily understood yet completely unknown to neophytes such as me. The bar-like fixture that's holding the engine is used to set the angle of the engine.

By wrenching on the nut at the end of the bar allows for a fairly decent range of angles for the enegine. The first step is to lower and back the transmission down into the tunnel.

It didn't go in quickly or easily - there was a lot of pushing and pulling to get it aligned properly.

The build manual highlighted a piece of the cast block of the engine that needed to be cut off. Note that the engine is level at this point - you can see how the fulcrum of the leveling bar has moved.

With that done and just a few minutes before I had to head back home, we added the exhaust headers:

The parking brake was reinstalled. It was a lot easier when I test fit it months ago - the more car there is, the harder it is to build the car.

Perfect fit!

Work time for this step:  4 hours.

Unproductive time: None. 

Frustration Level: 3/10.

Total time of build: 88 hours.