Today, well the first thing was to do a little cleaning and relocation of some non-car stuff. Then I climbed into my not so white bunny suit, put on my paint mask, slid under the Monte-Carlo and shot the final top coats of paint for the new floorboards. Sorry, no pics, paint dust was brutal even with a mask. Have to let that go a day or two to set right due to the humidity. My M/C is on Harbor Freight floor dollies so I can roll it around fairly easily. Did that and spent about a half hour or so with a vacuum to suck up all the dust and crud that had been accumulating. Shifted the car back into position and pulled the motor out of its storage spot. The plan is to drop it onto the engine mounts and then take a measurement from the top ear on the 4-speed to where the shifter sits to get the distance from the bell housing mounting face to the shifter. With the motor on its front mounts I can use the measurement from the transmission and measure the same distance from the bellhousing face back down the tunnel to locate where the cutaway for the shifter ought to get located on the tunnel. After that I can pop the motor back out, make the cuts for the pocket, mount the 4-speed to the mill and drop the whole unit as one for the last? time. The rest of the afternoon was non car stuff again so not getting into that. Pics?? yeah, do need to take some at this point as where I am at now is a way point or goal on the way to completion. Only took me about twelve years to get this far-( major hiatus in the middle due to personal issues and the need to build a proper garage. Hmm, just a minute, that reminds me-nope, will have to do some digging--too many pictures but here are a few. From top to bottom is, a general shot of the garage/shop, next is a junk in the trunk shot of parts and components waiting to be re-attached or worked on, the third shot is my 400 block being used for mock up duties. Being empty, it was perfect to use as a locator for the clutch Z-bar and its mounts to make sure everything fit according to how the factory had it originally. Finally, one of my 305, on its stand and bagged to keep it clean. This particular '05 is year correct to the body and drive train. What came out of it was an 05 but a Vortec that someone had dropped in sometime in the past. That motor is sitting on an engine dolly somewhere in the shop and unless I take on a hot rod project at some point will likely just get stuffed into a storage pocket along the south wall. For the droolers, the 400 is a four bolt main block that has never been bored over. it came out of a race garage that my neighbour had and he gifted it to me for my help. Scored a 327 forged crank by swapping him a 350 crank that I had gathering dust. He needed a core for the machine shop and had been seriously contemplating giving up the forged piece. It does need its journals done but, hey, a forged crank!?!?. More pics as I find time to take them.
