Gotta drop the cradle on my 3800 car again...

[TopNotch]

My engine is ready to receive another transmission. I've had spme back and knee pain lately, so I'm doing this job slowly. Thank God for shop cranes.

[TopNotch]

Today I replaced some melted wire loom. I had bought it from Amazon. I guess they're not the place to buy wire loom. I replaced it with some high temp wire loom from Summit. I already had some on the car, so I know it will hold up.

[Fierofool]

Which did you get?  Did you get a temperature range?  I need to replace melted loom on my car.  The stuff I'm told I need to get should have a silver or gray stripe on it to indicate that it's for temperatures experienced in the engine bay. 

[TopNotch]

I just searched for "high temperature wire loom" and got what came up. It has a silver stripe on it.

[TopNotch]

The brand of wire loom I got is Ron Francis. Apparently they only make 3 sizes, but theirs is made of nylon, while other brands are made of polyethylene or something like that. You can get it at ronfrancis.com if no one else has it.
Edit: I looked on Jeggs for "high temp wire loom", and what I found there was only good for up to 200 degrees F. The melting point of nylon is 512 degrees F.

[TopNotch]

More improvements while the engine is out... The "ribs" on my valve covers have never looked real good. I tried sanding and polishing them, and even putting metallic tape on them, but neither gave good results.
My latest attempt is to paint them with exhaust coating. I also wire-brushed and painted the rusty EGR valve mount. Here is a picture that shows one of the valve covers and the EGR valve mount.

[TopNotch]

The stuff I used at first to paint my exhaust pieces with was some I already had, and it was DEI brand (Design Engineering Inc.). When I ran out of it, I tried to find more, and found some on eastwood.com. I ordered some way back on April 8, and still haven't received it. So I searched on Amazon and found this:

Before I bought it from Amazon, I tried to find some at the local AutoZone, but they didn't have it. It would be nice if they did. And this brand has a "bake on the car" procedure in the instructions. That's good, because the cross-over pipe is too big for the oven.
I paid for the Eastwood order by Paypal, so I have applied for a refund with them.

[SpadeCustoms]

Most of our local stores do not have "quality" stuff for exhaust painting. Did you look at Summit for the DEI stuff?

BTW I used the bumper method to raise the car up. Helped out tremendously to slide the 4.9 in. Didn't have to fight to get around the cherry picker this time.

[TopNotch]

My car is nearly all back together except for the rear bumper cover. And I have good news and bad news.
The good news: It started right up. It was as if it hadn't sat disassembled since last November.
So with all the appropriate fluids in the car, I decided to let it run for a little while. Since the transmission pump runs even when the car isn't going anywhere, I had put some ATF in my "new" transmission.
The bad news: One of my transmission coolant hoses came off the metal line from the transmission, and the transmission peed ATF all over my home-made carport concrete. Well, at least I know that the transmission pump works quite well.
So I went to the store and got a large bag of cheap store brand cat litter to pour on the mess. I'll clean it up tomorrow.

[Fierofool]

I bought the same brand in black to paint my battery tray area and an area on the cradle after treating it with rust converter while the engine was out.

[TopNotch]

I bought the same brand in black to paint my battery tray area and an area on the cradle after treating it with rust converter while the engine was out.

I assume you meant the same brand of exhaust coating I mentioned in a previous post, and not the brand of kitty litter I mentioned in my last post.

[TopNotch]

Well, since I have no idea when or if my original transmission will be rebuilt, the transmission I put in my car is a "plan B" transmission. I bought a used one, not from Ebay this time, but from a dealer of used and re-manufactured transmissions. They didn't have a remanned one that met my needs, but they had a used  one with 73k miles on it, and a one year warranty. So I bought it, and it's in the car.
It has a curious problem that I will live with for now -- my body is too beat up to work on it any more for a while. It will only go if it is in reverse of first gear. But once the car starts going, I can shift to a higher gear and it will "catch". After that, it works normally until I have to stop. Then I have to shift to first again to take off. If any of you know what's going on, please let me know.
I will go on longer and longer test drives to see if anything changes.

[Fierofool]

I bought the same brand in black to paint my battery tray area and an area on the cradle after treating it with rust converter while the engine was out.

I assume you meant the same brand of exhaust coating I mentioned in a previous post, and not the brand of kitty litter I mentioned in my last post.

 

[TopNotch]

This morning I went on a test drive at highway speeds. The transmission worked just fine, except if I stopped, I had to switch to first gear to take off again. While driving, I could put it in 4th, and the transmission would shift as required depending on how fast I was going.

[Raydar]

Pat... I think that car has "got it in" for you.