D-37: Mounted
I am beat-ass tired today. Or as my brother says that they say it in North Carolina, tar’d. Why? Dave and I got the engine mounted in the car yesterday. And while this might be an easy job if you had a lift that would maneuver the car up and down, we don’t have one of those at my house, which meant a lot of lifting the car up with the cherry picker, then rolling the engine under the car, and then lots of other up and down movements and to and fro movements, and then finally — finally! — the engine was mounted.
Unfortunately, Dave had to leave after we had the engine under the car but before it was actually in its mounts, so he didn’t get to see that part (yet). At one point when I was trying to get the driver’s side/transmission mount into its saddle on the frame, the missus came out into the garage with infant in hand and operated the cherry picker jack handle while I pushed the transmission so that it would get lined up properly.
The rest of you who think/claim that you have kick-ass wives had better get those ladies to start bringing the heat because not only did I just take two consecutive weekdays off from work to work on the car without her even blinking an eye, but she operated a cherry picker jack, having never done so before, while holding a screaming baby. Huzzah!
After that I wrangled with the passenger-side mount for a few minutes and finally got it bolted in. Put the upper timing belt cover back on, and started wiring up everything that needs to be wired up topside. Not much later the missus needed some help with dinner and the three screaming/crying children inside the house, so that pretty much wrapped things up for the day. Which was fine, because I was already beat-ass tar’d at that point. I went back out later to finish cleaning up and straightening things, but that was the end of the work for the day.
Since I finally got all the radiator hoses in front worked out the other day, the only hose left to fit is the output hose from the engine to the tube that takes it up to the radiator. I have a hose temporarily in place but it needs to be cut down and then I think we’re all set. After that I will complete the re-connection of all the stuff in the engine bay, re-mount the clutch/shift cable quadrant, and then complete the re-wire of the dash area and switch gear. If I can pull it together tonight and tomorrow night, we might even have a first attempt at starting this jalopy by the weekend. That’s probably optimistic given the baby’s baptism this weekend and the resulting hoarde of relatives, but a man can dream, can’t he?
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