Slogging Forward
The past month has been much less productive than I was hoping for. We actually had a couple of weeks with decent weather, which made the time I had available a little nicer, at least.
The biggest win has been getting that fender reinstalled. Not that it helps the car run in any way, but at least now I don’t have to be afraid to lean on the header panel.
I’m at the point that there are a lot of little things holding me up. There really aren’t many things keeping me from doing a test start. With a couple of wires, I suppose I could. But I’m so close I’d rather have the accessories bolted up and a cooling system. The accessories have been the biggest stumbling point. Due to the headers and other slight differences between this engine and the old one, none of the brackets bolt up. I have a spacer to make the alternator bracket work, but I have my doubts that the AC compressor is going to clear it. I’ll have to come up with a new power steering pump bracket as well. Of course, I can’t finalize any of it until it is all together.
And bolts! You are probably thinking that having my grandfathers random collection of hardware, my dad’s random collection of hardware, plus what I’ve acquired over the course of my life, that I would have enough matching bolts to at least start mocking things up. You would be WRONG! How can I have approximately 17 trillion bolts and not be able to find three matching 3/8 24 bolts?
Since the engine is fighting me, I figure I can at least finish up the interior. I pulled out the passenger seat and had a pile of seat foam dust two inches high!
The seats aren’t in great shape, but with a potential 2000 mile road trip planned for next year, it would be nice to have something more comfortable – either redoing these seats or buying something else. I’d just re-upholster these seats, but the cost isn’t trivial and I’m not 100% sure what I want to do with the interior yet. I’m trying to find some seats out of a 3rd gen Camaro or Firebird, but even those cars are getting hard to find. Just another piece I need to figure out, but at least I can drive her with the old seats.
Fortunately, there are plenty of parts I can actually install, so I’ll keep inching towards completion. I just want to hear her run!