Tranny problem determined and some other items installed.

Well after many calls we finally figured out our drive shaft problem. They gave me the wrong one. I removed the rear housing of the transmission to try and determine what our problem was. We found that at the rear of this housing there is a bushing with an inside diameter of 1.5" and we measured the outside diameter of the drive shaft yoke we were trying to install through it and found it to be 1.68' or .18 over, so it obviously wasn't going to fit. So we have to put that aside until we can round up another yoke with the correct size. Here we go again, waiting for parts : (

We installed the headers, which were a fairly tight fit. I found the header on the passenger side was touching the starter and had to remove the starter and adjust it to not hit the header. Very nice feature on the starter to be able to rotate it to miss hitting things.

Spent a lot of time trying to sort out the drive shaft problem. Need to put the tranny back together tomorrow.

      This is the drive shaft yoke that was too large for the transmission.

                   Here you can see where I took the back housing off the
                   tranny to see what our problem was.

                                         Here is the drive shaft.

                                        Header installed on the passenger side.

                          Rear housing off of the back of the transmission. Kind of
                         an odd angle, it's from the top looking down.

Engine and tranny installed

With the help of a few friends, Jim Ellis, Bob Fusselman and of course Steve Gross whose heavy helping on the build, we were able to get the engine and transmission installed. Things went pretty smooth except for a few tight spots. We had to work at getting the motor mounts lined up but we finally got there. The space is fairly tight so we had to be careful not to bung things up.

We got the engine and tranny buttoned down and then tried to install the drive shaft without any luck. It would go into the rear of the tranny housing about 1" and then hit something solid. We tried for quite a while but finally bagged it for me to check with the tranny folks in the morning. The engine looks great installed.

Traudl was the photographer for the install, she wanted the heavy load : )

Getting ready to install engine and transmission

We're lined up to install the engine and transmission tomorrow morning, Memorial Day. We thought we would take this morning and get all the loose ends buttoned up to have everything ready for the install tomorrow, so we don't run into any surprises.

The engine was attached to a pallet with support boards so we had to first unhook it away from the pallet. We then attached any items that needed to be attached to the engine, such as engine mounts, starter etc. We also removed the transmission shifter arm from the transmission and the breather cover, so that they won't be damaged during engine install.

We had the engine hooked up and thought we would make a dry run installing it to see if we were going to have any problems. We got it up in the air over the car and all was looking good and we decided, hey what the heck, we already have it lined up so lets give it a go. Well we were doing really well when we realized that the brackets we attached to the engine to lift it with were going to hit the firewall and not let us get the engine in place.

So we had to pull the engine back up out of the car and set it down on the floor to allow us to better adjust the lift brackets to not interfere with the install. At that point we decided that was good enough for the day and set it aside for install tomorrow morning.

                      Here the engine is still attached to the pallet with metal straps.

                         Here we have the engine lifted off of the pallet.

               Here we have installed the drivers side motor mount, gold looking
               thing, and are looking at how to install the starter on the passenger's side.

                       Starter and motor mount installed on the passenger side.

                 OK, here we have the engine ready to give it a go at install test.

 
                        Starting to position the engine and tranny for install.

                         

  We realize here that we have an issue with clearance and have to stop the install.

            Car and motor put away ready for another go at it tomorrow.

Made some very good progress today

Today we were able to make some very good progress. We finished up routing and securing the brake lines in the rear. We then assembled and installed the battery box and battery. We decided to move forward without installing the brakes at this point because we're still missing the disc's, don't ask  : (

So we installed some of the brake parts and the wheels. We then removed the dolly that we had built for the car and put the car on individual wheel dollies I purchased. Looks good. Our plan now is to get the engine and transmission ready to install. We're planning on installing them on Memorial Day morning. Going to see if we can line up another person or so to lend a hand with this.

                   Here you can see the new black dollies we will be using now.
                   You can see the dolly we built still under the car, which
                    we will now remove.

     
                                         Car now riding on the new dollies.

                                    Battery box and battery now installed.

               Here you can see the battery box behind the fuel pump.
              Where I have the fuel pump located is where the battery would normally go
               but we felt it would be to hard to work on it there.

                                   
                             Car pushes around fairly easily now with new dollies.                              

We finally got the rear end parts in.

Well, we had a small triumph on parts. The upper control arms came in for the rear end so we were able to install the rear end. That rear end is a little heavy and awkward so we had to use a jack to move it around, it was a little difficult to get it positioned correctly, but we finally got it in place and installed. One more thing off the check list.

Today we worked on finishing up the brake lines other than the final connection. We are still missing the brake disks, this goes beyond crazy, a long story, but we decided to install the wheels without the brakes for now. This will allow us to go forward installing the engine and transmission and many other things once we have the car on it's wheels. I bought individual dollies that we can put under each wheel to allow us to push the car around the shop.

My oldest granddaughter thought she would like to do a little work on the car so she came over. I had to remove a couple panels that grandson Taylor had already put on to make room for some wires so I had Morgan put those panels back on. I also showed her how to tap a piece of metal to allow for threading a screw into the metal. She did a really good job and caught on very quickly. I think she enjoyed working on the car.

Here are some photos. I think things will start moving more quickly now that we've decide to move forward without the brakes installed.

                          Granddaughter Morgan turning into a grease monkey : )
                        Learning how to tap threads into a piece of metal for a screw.

             Getting ready to have at it. Looks like she's pretty serious about this stuff : )

                                          Starting to rivet on a metal panel.

                                           Installing pop rivets.

                                                Steve and I installing rear end.

                             Rear end in, one more thing off of the check list.

Finishing up some of the electrical and transmission work.

Believe it or not we are still waiting on the rear end and brake parts. Really making this build more difficult than necessary but we just keep plugging along. Once we receive those parts we can install the rear end and the brakes. We will then be able to install the engine and transmission and start attaching all the electrical ends we have been working on and buttoning down a lot of peripheral things such as bolting down the gas tank, riveting paneling pieces in place etc.

Steve has really been doing a yeoman's duty on the wiring of the car. He seems to like that aspect. We worked today on getting the gear shift paraphernalia installed. Really interesting how all of that comes together.

I've been playing around with a console we will use. Trying to do a little mock up of what it will be.

When I ordered my engine I ordered with it braided spark plug wires, they make it look a lot better than black ones. When the engine arrived the wires looked pretty bad in that they weren't cut to size and some were too long making them look very uneven. So I ordered a new set of wires, measuring exactly how long I wanted them and you guessed it, when they came in they hadn't followed my instruction correctly. But Taylor, my grandson, and I installed them anyway and we were able to use some of the old ones to make it work. They now look much better.


                        Taylor came over to help me with the spark plug wires.

                              Installed new spark plug wires.

   Haven't shown this before. I had the grill chromed. It should look really great when installed : )

                               
                                    Lots of wiring needs for this one.

   Put in the seat, steering wheel and console to check on gas pedal location.

Installed gear shift paraphernalia. Here you can see the shifter with linkage.

The silver box is the sending unit to be able to display in the car what gear the transmission is in.

      Gear shift knob. I'm installing a 4 speed automatic with overdrive.