[ccracin]

Let's see where were we? Well the cab is now back on the chassis and the new drive shaft loop fits nice. The driveshaft will now fit as well. All good things! Now that the cab is bolted back on the chassis it is time to continue with the fitting of the firewall. Well, until you get side tracked. More on that in a minute. We set the engine in the chassis to verify that all the work we did on the trans tunnel was correct. It was, however we decided we wanted more room around the bell housing. So we added some pieces to make some room. All in all it didn't take anything away from the interior and it will be much easier to work on the drive train. Here is what we did.







Once this was complete I went ahead and welded in the steering column/brake pedal mount. I coated the cowl area with Eastwood's Por-15 product before welding it in. Here it is.





Now here is where we got side tracked a bit. As we were taking the motor in and out, we realized we hated our original design for the motor mounts on the chassis. If you look in the back ground in the first and second second pictures above you will see what they looked like. They didn't fit the LS engine as well as we would like since they were put in with the Big Block. They were also tight to the oil pan rail of the LS. You can see the notches we were contemplating. (Looks Like A Mistake Too) They also made us stand the engine and trans up at a severe angle to get the assembly in place. Are you getting where I'm going here? We need to get this truck done, we are running out of cut off wheels! Out they came and a new design was developed. Check it out:

Old Vs. New










These will allow the engine to slide back between the mounts. Previously the kick outs on the Champ Pan required us to go over and in the set the engine and trans. in. I think these look much better in general. The other thing this allowed us to do was lower the front of the engine 3/4". We couldn't do that with the rack and Big Block. I know it was the so called 2 steps forward one step back, but we will be better off in the end. Once we get the mounts stitched in, we will be off the side-track and back to getting that fire wall put in for good! Thanks for looking and sorry for the long post, but it is progress!