I've pretty much remodeled the entire engine bay and front frame area.

This all started when I had to replace the oil pan in February (suggestion: don't use Fram's little oil drain valve doo-hickey if you have an oil pan with the drain plug on the bottom, such that afore-mentioned valve hangs below the protective cross-member.)

Now, to get the oil pan out, one needs to lift the engine enough to allow the not-deep part of the oil pan to clear the oil pump pickup. This is difficult, as the transmission hits the tranny tunnel before it gets up high enough. So, separate the two. Not so easy, as the tranny doesn't want to slide back far enough to clear the flexplate, and the engine can go forward because the engine mounts don't clear the frame mounts, not to mention radiator, etc. Got thay apart, got engine high enough to get old oil pan off... and discover that the new oil pan (from a later model) is shaped slightly differently before the sump, requiring the engine to be up a little more to get it on. Going up any further required detaching the exhaust. Anyone who's messed with exhaust before just *knows* that at least one bolt will snap. Well, both of the bolts holding the head-pipe to the maniflod on the passenger side broke. OK, says I, time to install the headers I've had for some time now. You know what happends next: one of the bolts holding the exhaust manifold to the heads broke. Mind you, it doesn't do this until I've got the engine back on it's mounts, and the transmission reconnected. Poor planning on my part, I suppose. So, this time I pull the tranny first (since it's leaking and needs new gaskets anyway,) then try to get the engine up high enough to work on drilling the bolt out. Yeah, that's gonna work. Finally, I realize that the engine is halfway out of the car, and the only things still connected to it are the distributor power and a power steering line, and the dang headers probably aren't going to go in without raising the engine even more, so out comes the engine. Much easier to work on. Get the bolt drilled out and re-tapped, and realize that theis is a perfect opportunity to clean up the engine bay, engine, etc. Borrowed a power washer (gas powered!) from dad, and blast everything in sight.

So now everything is clean, but still kind of ratty looking. OK, I mask a bunch of stuff and paint the engine. Then I start to look at masking and painting the firewall, and realize that it'll actually be easier, and cleaner-looking, to remove most of the stuff attached. Oh, and the fenders come off pretty easy too. Off comes the fender liners, fenders, brake booster, windshield wiper motor, AC "suitcase", various relays, and the forward wiring harness.

Glad I did this. There was all sorts of rust inside of the cowl. Lots of sanding, wire-brushing, scraping, cutting, application of seam-sealer, and application of POR-15 and primer, we have this. I have since applied satin black to all surfaces (pictures soon,) and ordered a whole mess of plastic and rubber bits to replace the cracked, broken, and otherwise worn, faded, and ugly pieces under the hood. the fun bit is that this car will look fantastic under the hood, while still looking like utter hell on the outside...

While I'm at it, many bolts and such are being wire-brushed and painted, horn, AC, and blower relays are cleaned and clear-coated, the AC suitcase has been cleaned, and the aluminum AC lines will be polished slightly, then the suitcase will be clear-coated to discourage grime attachment. I've unwrapped the wiring harness, cleaned it up (soak in Simple Green, then run it through the dishwasher. Genius!) removed a couple of unnecessary wires, and I'll be re-jacketing it with modern corrugated split-looming. The factory harness will be run along the inner fender in it's factory location, but I'll be hiding the aftermarket wiring for my electric fans, amps, etc. inside of the fender. I'll also be testing the durability of Rustoleum's paint for plastic on the perfectly functional-but-sad-looking inner fenders (I went with the textured variant because the non-textured plastic paint is glossy.)

So, what I've done (or will have done when it's all said and done):

• new oil pan and gaskets
• clean and paint engine
• add modified but unused Hooker Competition headers, POR-15 Factory Manifold Gray painted.
• copper exhaust gaskets
• Spectre Performance safety-wired exhaust manifold bolts
• de-rust and POR-15 inside of cowl and lower front fenders
• remove old, dried-up seam sealer from cowl seams and apply new seam-sealer.
• clean, sand and paint firewall satin black
• clean and paint front framerails, steering and suspension satin black
• clean and paint drive shaft
• clean and paint transmission cross-member
• polyurethane transmission mount (original rubber mount cam out in two pieces)
• clean and repair forward wiring harness
• hide aftermarket wiring as much as possible
• paint inner fenders (plastic - we'll see how it works)
• clean and paint wiper motor, brackets, relays, bolts, shims, etc. (this is the real time-killer)
• replace 30 year old plastic and rubber bits such as grommets, hood bumpers, a-arm seals, windshield washer jar, and the seals for the AC "suitcase".
• replace stretched throttle cable with Spectre Performance braided-steel throttle cable
• possibly replace kick-down cable with Spectre Performance braided-steel unit