It's in, bitches.

Okay folks, as you can see in this picture, the engine is in the car.

That's the short story. The long story sucks, but I'll tell it anyway.

If you remember, the plan was to use the long Christmas weekend to finish up the engine and put it in the car. Then Saturday morning fate intervened. My grandfather died. He had been fighting lung cancer for about three years, but lung fibrosis was what finally got him. It wasn't unexpected, but it was a sad weekend. I left Saturday afternoon with my sister for Missouri, and was there until after the funeral yesterday.

This morning, I got up bright an early and retrieved my helper from my friend's house. I'm really glad he took Bella at such short notice.

After I got her, I started work on the car. I needed to replace the motor mounts while I had the engine out. It looked easy. Three bolts apiece. Easy?

Not so much. The bolts had nuts behind them. Access to the nuts was through a large hole in the frame that was presently occupied by the lower control arm forward pivot point. The lower control arms had to come out, and before those can come out, you have to pull the spindles and the springs. I hadn't planned on doing the front end quite yet, but I'll be damned if I take all this apart twice.

Sooo, I ripped off the front spindles, got the control arms out, and knocked out all the tie rod ends and the center link. All new parts are ordered, and the lower control arms are at the machine shop getting bead blasted. I'll powdercoat them next week.

After I dropped the arms off at the machine shop, I got the engine on the hoist and started wrestling it in. It took about 35 minutes before it clunked onto the transmission dowels, and another hour of twisting in tight places to get the bellhousing bolts and motor mount through bolts in.

Tomorrow, I have a haircut at 3:30, and I have to pack for my weekend in Maryland. I might be able to get the gas tank reinstalled. If that happens, it may be possible to start it tomorrow, but I'm not holding my breath.