looks like your rounding 3rd base on this project. thank for sharing.

Did you ever get that trunk latch back in?

Also what has been the most frustrating part for you about working on the car?

Thanks for looking. No haven't got the trunk latch back in. I hope to tackle it soon. I'll admit I've been procrastinating on that part as I don't want to screw up drilling the hole through the floor for the fuel neck. As for the most frustrating part, I'd have to say it's that I have absolutely no prior mechanical training so I get that overwhelming "I'm in way over my head" feeling quite often. That and hoping that I'm doing things correctly.


Got to spend some time in the shop the past few days. Unfortunately not as much as I wanted to. I ended up getting a new wireless router that allows us to print from our laptops wirelessly using an older USB printer. Took a little longer to get set up than I thought as I was having an idiot day and couldn't follow instructions. Enough whining and on to the updates.

Got the motor back together with all new gaskets. Decided to install the intake, throttle body, fuel rails and starter also

http://i222.photobucket.com/albums/d...9/P1010275.jpg

http://i222.photobucket.com/albums/d...9/P1010274.jpg

Unfortunately the mounting holes are off on the fuel rails. Not sure if I'm going to drill new holes or get different rails. You can see the hole to the left of the bolt.

http://i222.photobucket.com/albums/d...9/P1010276.jpg

The starter fit good. Lots of room

http://i222.photobucket.com/albums/d...9/P1010295.jpg

http://i222.photobucket.com/albums/d...9/P1010294.jpg

Decided to mount the coil relocation brackets. First had to drill and tap some holes

http://i222.photobucket.com/albums/d...9/P1010277.jpg

Painted the brackets with Duplicolor rattle can

http://i222.photobucket.com/albums/d...9/P1010284.jpg

Mounted them in place. I haven't decided which direction I'm going to mount the coils. I'll likely keep them the way they are. If I do, I'll paint the passenger side ones black as I don't like the yellow color that's facing up.

http://i222.photobucket.com/albums/d...9/P1010286.jpg

http://i222.photobucket.com/albums/d...9/P1010287.jpg

http://i222.photobucket.com/albums/d...9/P1010289.jpg

From the side, lots of room for the pulleys to clear

http://i222.photobucket.com/albums/d...9/P1010290.jpg

As you could tell from some of the other pics, the motor and trans are back into the car.

http://i222.photobucket.com/albums/d...9/P1010285.jpg

Installed the Lokar oil dipstick. Thought I'd put it in now so no debris can get in the open hole

http://i222.photobucket.com/albums/d...9/P1010305.jpg

The dipstick I'm using is one of their tight seal ones. It actually locks into place and you have to push the release down to get it out

http://i222.photobucket.com/albums/d...9/P1010307.jpg

Now onto some bad news. When I put the motor in, I was doing it by myself. Should have grabbed someone, but I wanted it in now and I've done it by myself several times. Unfortunately though one of the coil mounting bolts did this

http://i222.photobucket.com/albums/d...9/P1010279.jpg

And it got worse from there. As I was looking at the new gouge I put into the paint, I saw this

http://i222.photobucket.com/albums/d...9/P1010291.jpg

Unfortunately there are two bubbles a few inches apart. As first I was mad, but the more I thought about it, there was really no point in getting mad. That's part of doing these builds. So I think what I'm going to do is concentrate on getting a bunch of things done over the winter. In the spring, I'm going to strip the firewall and when it's time for paint, I will paint the entire shell at once. Hopefully over the winter I can get all the gaps done. I still haven't decided if I'm going to try and paint it myself or pay someone to do it. The one positive note is that there were a few things that I wish I could have done, but couldn't since the firewall was already painted. This way, I can fix up a few things and don't have to worry about the paint since it's coming off anyways. The worst part of it though...the cost. The firewall cost me about $400-$500 to do. Ouch!!!!

Oh also as promised, here's some pics of the Muscle Rodz firewall closeouts.

http://i222.photobucket.com/albums/d...9/P1010293.jpg

http://i222.photobucket.com/albums/d...9/P1010292.jpg

Mike sorry to hear about the damage. The motor came out nice and looks good in there. Thats a nice place for the coils the wires won't have to be too long. Keep the updates coming.

Thanks Wayne.

Well it's been quite a while since I posted an update. Unfortunately haven't gotten much done on the car at all. Had some other projects on the go, lost motivation for a while, trip to Vegas and now am sick. But I'll post a small update anyways.

First, I found out why I ended up with moisture in my paint. I decided to take the plug in the side of compressor out. Found out that I had about 8-10 inches of water in the bottom of my tank. I always emptied out the air after each day, but never thought of actually draining it. That's changed. I fixed the drain that was on the bottom and made it easier to access. Then I was told that most filter systems don't work that great unless they have gone through 50 feet of line first. So I had an extra 50 feet of air line that I ran between my tank and filter. Then it goes into an air reel with 50 more feet. So far it's working alot better.

Picked up a few new tools over the holidays.

One of my cordless drills packed it in, so replaced it with this. Got it for half price.

http://i222.photobucket.com/albums/d...9/P1010346.jpg

Grabbed a new impact socket set which includes deep. Regular price was $220, picked it up for $65

http://i222.photobucket.com/albums/d...9/P1010347.jpg

A while back I also picked up this mig light from Eastwood. It works really well. Helps light up the area you're working on.

http://i222.photobucket.com/albums/d...9/P1010326.jpg

Well onto the car. I did manage to start working on getting rid of the weld on hinges from the 74 doors and making them work with bolt on hinges.

To make the bolt on door work better, I wanted to get the front bolt area from a wrecked set of doors. Thanks again for this Jeff (a member on a different forum). Jeff cut out the front part of some doors that he had and shipped them to me. What these pieces gave me was a better idea where the holes go and it also gave me the piece of steel inside the door with the threaded holes. I didn't want to put nuts on the inside of the door like I've heard some guys have done.

Here's the pieces I got from Jeff

http://i222.photobucket.com/albums/d...9/P1010345.jpg

http://i222.photobucket.com/albums/d...9/P1010344.jpg

Once I had them, I took off the brackets which hold the threaded piece of steel. I forgot to take a picture of the actual threaded piece. I'll do that when I do the other door.

http://i222.photobucket.com/albums/d...9/P1010342.jpg

There was also a piece of steel that added strength to the front of the door. I took that off also. Here's what I was left with after some trimming

http://i222.photobucket.com/albums/d...9/P1010341.jpg

Here's what I have done so far and how I did it.

Door with weld on hinges

http://i222.photobucket.com/albums/d...9/P1010319.jpg

I cleaned up the area around the hinges

http://i222.photobucket.com/albums/d...9/P1010324.jpg

Then I bent some 1/4" round bar so it would fit the corner of the hinges. This allowed me to put the new hinge in the same spot as the weld on

Old hinge

http://i222.photobucket.com/albums/d...9/P1010327.jpg

New hinge in place. When I took the weld on hinges off, I originally wanted to try and take them off in one piece. I very quickly realized that wasn't going to happen so out came the grinder with cutting blade and air hammer.

http://i222.photobucket.com/albums/d...9/P1010328.jpg

You can see that the new hinge is a bit shorter than the old one was. That's okay, it will still work.

http://i222.photobucket.com/albums/d...9/P1010329.jpg

Once the hinge was in place, I used a black felt pen and marked the holes. I then used the front piece that I got from Jeff as a template. I used the holes for the door seals to align the pieces

http://i222.photobucket.com/albums/d...9/P1010336.jpg

The bolt holes that I marked and the holes in the template piece weren't an exact fit, so I just made the holes slightly bigger. For this I used an air saw as well as a die grinder with a metal cutting tip

http://i222.photobucket.com/albums/d...9/P1010337.jpg

I held onto the threaded piece of steel and tried the new hinges

http://i222.photobucket.com/albums/d...9/P1010338.jpg

And the door's on the car

http://i222.photobucket.com/albums/d...9/P1010339.jpg

http://i222.photobucket.com/albums/d...9/P1010340.jpg

I haven't finished aligning the door yet, but once I have it where I'm happy with it, I'll drill a couple guide holes in each hinge so I can put them back in the same place. Once that's done, I plan on welding the brackets that hold the threaded pieces in place. That will be a bit tricky as I need to weld inside the door. Once I have the driver's side door done, I'll post some more pics.

Awesome job.:thumbsup:

Slick idea Mke, it looks like it worked out great.

There ya go! I was wondering if you'd dropped off the face of the earth?

LOL

Sorry about the paint issues -- but this is always a learning curve... it's just part of the hobby.

Shoulda seen the piping I helped a buddy replace -- all black steel -- and you know what happens when moisture meets steel... so not only did he have moisture he was blowing RUSTY air thru his tools etc.

Thanks guys.

No still around. Just haven't had anything to update for a while. Yeah that water in the tank really sucked. Even though it wrecked my paint, it worked out for the better. I ended up butchering the firewall around the steering column so now I get to fix it. Plus it was a good (although expensive) practice round to try my hand at painted. I'm pretty sure the water is also what caused two Ingesoll Rand composite die grinders to just up and die on me. The guy at the tool shop was saying that the composite ones don't hold up to abuse as well as the steel ones. Sure glad I bought the expensive ones only to learn that. He gave me a great deal on some replacements though.