The engine is back...

And now I have plastic wrapped cast iron parts and two cardboard boxes full of shiny new parts.  "Good Luck", were the parting words at the machine shop.

Got my hands on two good books, a decent video and phone numbers for friends that have done it before.  That should be enough to get the job done.

Pictures to follow once assembly is underway

Murphy and his Damn Law

 It is inevitable that any time something needs to be removed and is held down by 3 or more bolts - one of them will not cooperate.  There must be a law describing this phenomena.  

While anxiously awating the engine's return from the machine shop - I decided to begin stripping the interior of the Bronco.  Seats, rollbar, carpet...  It would seem that 42 years of rust can be quite troublesome, take for example the T50 seatbelt bolt below - I promptly sheared this thing while wrenching with a breaker bar (I was on my second T50 socket having already broken one)

I sprayed the hell out of it with every kind of lubricant I could get my hands on break it free - even put a torch to it to heat it - all kinds of tricks.  Drilled a hole to use an EZ out before I found out that they are way old school and you can't even find them in a store. 

I glanced over in the shop and spotted my welder - now or never.  I got a grade 8 bolt that fit into the hole I had drilled and did my very first weld - not bad

Then I sheared it off - at least the weld held 

so I ground to mess flat and welded a big nut to the top - that held too - however I sheared off the T50 flush with the body - crap!

In the end - used a dremel to fully center the offcenter hole I had started, then increased bit size till I hit the threads and then picked out the remaining bits of metal.  

Here is what it looks like stripped down

What's going on?

The engine is still at the machine shop - might get it back this coming week.  In the meantime - I have been struggling with a sheared seatbelt bolt, but more on that later

The Missus, noting the down time, has decided to enlist me in the remodel of our walk-in closet this past weekend.  After careful measurements and many design iterations courtesy of easyclosets.com we settled on this design.

The company is aptly named, from the design process, accessories, ordering, delivery (very fast) and setup, it was all easy.  The product is well made and highly recommended by me for anyone considering a California Closet or something $imilarly priced.  Unless you have a need for real wood or have no handyman skills, choose easyclosets.

The components arrived in 20 boxes via UPS... yeah, 20 boxes.  The packing was phenomenal and nothing was lost damaged in shipment across the country.  Kudos to easyclosets, but what a mess of cardboard I have to dispose of.

Ripped out the contracter wire shelving, patched the massive holes, painted the closet walls a light olive green shade and started the installation process.  The hardest part is cutting the metal brackets to size that all of the other components hang off of.  If you measured correctly when you placed the order, everything fits like a glove.  

Here is the finished closet