Final phases

I've been pecking away at this project slowly over the last month. Other things keep getting in the way...but I'm workin at it:

I FINALLY got the Cutlass upper radiator bracket cut and modified so that it'll retain the big block Nova radiator and fan. I also gave it a coat of paint before installing it.

Another "finally." The accessory belts. I removed the A/C compressor and the AIR pump and had to do some scrounging to find the appropriate length PS pump belt and kludge up a bracket.

This is a gratuitous shot of the other side of the motor. I got tired of taking them from the left side.

This one hung me up for a week or so. If you look carefully at the shock absorber inside the spring, you'll see that it's in kinda skee-wompus, which is a technical term, meaning WRONG.

Here's why it was off like that. I'd trapped one of the spring positioning fingers in the spring pocket and the spring was in at an angle.

Things look a little better with the shock centered in the spring...sorta like they ought to. I even touched up the paint that got scratched while wrassling with it.

The other side wasn't as bad...although I'd put the lower control arm bolts in the wrong places. (I don't remember putting this part back together...it was over 2 years ago...but I swear I wasn't drinking.) This pic shows one just about backed out so they can be swapped. Something else in that picture: See that orange hose at the bottom? That's an air line. No, Not Delta or United....but the line running from my air compressor (just got it in September) to my air ratchet (I inherited several air tools a couple of years ago.) This is the first time I've worked with air tools. IT ROCKS!!! Just a week or so working with them and I'm hooked. The ratchet is a 3/8" drive, so I'm gonna have to upgrade to a 1/2 or 3/4 eventually...and I've got an air hammer and grinder and a few other little goodies. I wish I'd done this a LONG time ago.

This pic shows the shock absorber centered in the spring coils like the other side. I also measured the fender to wheel clearance and they're the same on both sides. And the nuts and bolts are all tightened up now. I just need to make sure I've got cotter pins in all the castellated nuts and I think I'll be done with this part.

I had to modify the shift cable bracket to get it to fit with the Art Carr deep pan. But after a period of discussion with an angle grinder it bolted in fine. I worked SO hard to get the backdate mechanism to function properly (I does...the neutral safety switch works fine. But I'd forgotten that the indicator spring or string was broken so it doesn't indicate what gear you're in. Oh, well. It never bothered me before. Shouldn't be a problem now.

I had to order a special fitting to adapt the carb fuel inlet to a -AN6 fitting. I went to a local parts house who should have had the part (and actually did) but the counter geek looked at me like I had 2 heads when I told him that I wanted a fuel inlet adapter for an Edelbrock carb to a male -AN6 fitting. You woulda thought I was speaking a foreign language. So I ordered it from Summit. Later I went back to the local place to get header gaskets and saw a HUGE selection of Russel's fittings. The guy obviously had no idea what he had in stock. But I DID get the header gaskets. They're in place, the left side is tightened up and the right side is halfway done. I have to jack that side of the car up to get to the rear header bolts. The coil and all the ignition except for the spark plugs is wired up

Next to come will be the removal of the EGR (after I went to so much trouble to make it fit...it's still in the way...so off it comes) and the wiring of the electric fan relay. We're getting close.

Well, this is the end of the Monte's story for this year. I had to make a decision about projects and garage space and the Model A won. It's in the garage and the Monte will be spending the winter in the driveway. I'm a little frustrated, because I was so close...then came down with viral pneumonia, which put me in the hospital for a week. By the time I got home, there were a couple of good days to switch things around and then this happened:

I guess Ol' Man Winter's here to stay the season...so...
...more to come in the spring.

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