Engine reassembled

Today I finally finished reassembling the engine. It took awhile for me to track down all the parts, which for some reason I had stored in a number of different places. The last time I was at this point was the summer of 2007.




The last time I assembled the engine I had a really hard time getting the flanges to line up where the intake manifold's heat riser connects to the tube from the muffler. This time I put some effort into bending and rotating the muffler tube so that its flange would line up better, and I got the bolts started at this connection first before securing it elsewhere, which made it a lot easier to get the manifold in. Hopefully this will put less strain on the manifold when the engine is running—broken welds between the heat riser and intake tube are common on these manifolds, probably due to bad flange alignment.



Along with the intake manifold there are some other new parts that I didn't have for the last assembly, including NOS heater ducts (above), and the correct air cleaner intake boot and a quick-release clamp. I also used one of these cool looking old stock carb-to-manifold gaskets that I got from BerT3 (below). No one will be able to see it, but I like knowing it's in there.



Once I've cleaned and painted the rear suspension the engine can go back in.