We intend to bring the convertible to RFTH again this year...but it developed some major issues since last year's run. I severely overheated it on the Capitol City Fieros Fall Color Tour up in Michigan last year, and I strongly suspected the problems were caused by a head gasket. Plus, I was getting a funky noise from the lower end and expected it to result in a bearing going bad very soon. Hmmm....there is a very nice 63k mile 2.5 sitting in the corner of my garage that I was saving for my mother's car (until I ended up with a 4.9 swap for her). We decided it was time to put this motor to use.
Our soft deadline was Friday so that we could make the Saturday meeting...but we have accepted the fact that we aren't going to make that at this point. Our hard deadline is RFTH.
Our goals:
1. Get the new engine cleaned, installed and running perfectly. This also requires a new wiring harness, and some chassis side wiring corrections for the auto swap (was originally a manual car)
2. Tear the seats out. The seat brackets are rusted in place, making this a challenge...but we need to replace the seats...they are torn up, they have a nasty vinyl skin, and the seat backs are broken and lay against the firewall. We also need to get them out to resolve goal 4.
3. Replace the vinyl floor covering with original carpeting (I have a carpet set from an 88 that we will drop in)
4. Put proper seat belts in the car. Right now, it only has lap belts. We want to do this primarily for safety reasons...but we are not sure if it will pass inspection with just lap belts. We intend to mount the shoulder mount to the upper corner of the firewall with a 1/4" backing plate on the engine side.
First...we yanked the old motor...
Stripped it (pic is partially stripped)...
Then we got parts sandblasted and powdercoated....and painted the new engine block...this brings us to Tuesday evening....
Wednesday, I started assembling things. First delay was the bolts. The original engine had been pulled apart and reassembled multiple times, so bolt sets were mismatched. With the pure white background, those details will stand out. So, I spent most of the day tracking down matching bolts, cleaning them, and painting them. I also discovered that during powdercoating, we got too much powder in some of the bolt holes. I thought I would be able to put the bolts in with just a little more resistance, until I broke the bolt that holds the alternator bracket to the intake. Now I have to drill it out, retap it...then tap all the other holes that are clogged. And of course, I didn't have an 8x1.25 tap...so this brings us to Wednesday night...
I will update again when we call it quits tonight.
