Oil cooler mounted
Engine bay seal channel repaired, seal installed.
Late dog house cooler and tinware repaired and painted
Inlet manifold fabbed up. There were some awful things done in the name of TIG welding and I managed to waste a whole bottle of gas by accidentally leaving the tap open, but lesson learned. The pipe on the right is for the idle air solenoid input that bypasses the throttle body.
Deep sump installed. Sure it leaks already, but it's installed, I've got some more work to do there I think. Have to love EMPI stuff. I also tapped a hole for an oil temp sender in it.
Fuel/air mixture and oil temp gauges mounted. No extra holes needed. :)
Degree wheel mounted. In the pic below you can see how. Basically it's a 1/2" threaded rod piece tapped into an aftermarket pulley bolt. It took me ages to find a local machine shop to do this, but in the end it only cost me $20.
Initially I was going to use the standard pulley as seen here. However, after more consideration I decided the best way was to go with an alloy pulley. In the first pic you can see two cad plated screws that index the degree wheel in the right spot. In the end I went with this setup because the stock pulley had all sorts of the curves and I couldn't be sure I could get the indexing screws right in it. I was also worried the steel pulley with interfere with the signal.
Having said all that, if I had my time again I'd just buy one of these from the Dub Shop. Sure it's not cheap, but it would have saved me a heap of time and stuffing around.
On other fronts the wiring on the car is close to being finished, but we still need to work out the ECU and wiring the engine in. Emil has been very good to me, but he's also been flat out at work. So things are not really done on that yet. I'm also trying to find a decent alternator at the mo... or organize to have an older one refurbed.
At the same time I was repairing the engine bay seal, I came cross this rust behind the bumper mount brackets. It was on both sides of the car. It's about the worst rust in the car. I know this, because just before I went to the UK I cavity waxed the heater channels and they're pretty great. Still it was a bit of a blow and a lot of work.
Having drilled out all the spot welds (which took ages) I found this. Nearly 60yo bright steel in some places, but rusted out in the bottom where moisture has sat. Not bad really though I guess.
The panel itself was pretty thin and lacey behind that bracket.
Cut out all the crappy metal.
Weld in some new, non-rust metal. I used a bonnet from a 76 volvo. It's still a bit thin really, but it got me out of trouble so I'm not complaining. Even finding this metal was a bit of a mission.
The repair panel is not strictly right for the year. It is however, bigger, stronger and most important, I could actually order it. There are period correct replacement Autocraft brackets, but they're out of stock even in the UK (where they are made). I had no hope of getting one out here. In the process all the panels were sprayed with weld through primer. Having finished it, the metal was painted with killrust style paint and then I cavity waxed the inside of the bracket as well. It's not super pretty, but it's not going to rust again any time soon.
I'm still yet to buy a turbo and intercooler. My poor wife keeps asking, "is it working yet". Hmm. I guess I better go back into the shed and get on with it. If only work and family wouldn't keep interrupting key building time. And of course I got sick yesterday cutting out another day off. Still I'll stop sooking and get on with it.
