Managed to actually bust some knuckles and accomplish some stuff on the car itself today. It's about 40°F outside which means I can get the garage close to 60° which is plenty comfortable to work in.
While the engine is still being built, I'm beginning to work on the next stage of the process, which is cleaning things up on some of the areas I haven't addressed or half-assed earlier. I can't in good conscience install a nice, pretty engine into a meh-looking engine compartment. I've painted this engine compartment a few times and I've never been very happy with the result.
So today I pulled everything out of the engine compartment that wasn't up to my standards. I pulled out the cracked charcoal canister, both the coolant overflow bottle and the washer fluid bottle which are yellowed. I pulled out the rusty steering shaft and steering box, and I pulled out the rusty master cylinder and brake booster assembly.
The brake booster and master cylinder are just gonna get replaced. That are rusty and ugly and I honestly have no idea how old they are so I'm not gonna spend any time cleaning and painting them. The steering shaft is going to get replaced with either a Jeep or Astro shaft, and I'm not sure if I'm going to buy a rebuilt F41 box from the parts store or do something else. The two fluid bottles are going to get replaced.
The firewall and inner fenders as well as the core support have been painted a few times, but I never prepped them very well. The car was Rusty Jones'd when it was new (the sticker was still in the window when I got it) and they sprayed some kind of crappy cavity wax sh*t all over the engine bay and I've never been able to fully get it off.
I've got to wait for a warmer day, roll it outside and pressure wash the engine bay with some good degreaser and hot water. Then I'll get it back inside, and prep everything really well for paint. Im going to scrape off the old seam sealer and reapply new. I'm going to leave the HVAC box in place mainly because I don't want pull fender. I'm gonna paint it with SEM trim black and I'll be using adhesion promoter.
I also am going to clean up the wiring even more under the dashboard, the driver's side was kind of a rat's nest straight from the factory. I am going to replace the emergency brake cables front to rear, and the speedometer cable and the accelerator cable.
This needs to look better-
I'm not leaving this ugliness right next to a nice shiny engine-