the next bit

January 2016: with the fenders all restored and back on the car it was time to re-build the front of the car and and finish the wiring in the engine compartment. I started with a Dynacorn front valance - I still have the the original, but it has several dents and some rust and I couldn't be bothered to restore it. The replacement was an excellent fit. I can't say the same for the stone guard - the reproduction part was awful, so it was back to my shed to restore the original.

As usual, the first step was accomplished with a mixture of the trusty wire wheel and some aircraft stripper I had left over from this project.

There were several holes in the stone guard that I didn't really need. I blame whoever installed the 1970's AC. The holes were filled in with the MIG welder and ground down, painted with primer, yada yada...

And it dropped right in! No adjustment required. The picture below was taken a bit later after the front bumper had been bolted on.

I also installed new trim pieces - the originals have irreparable AC-related damage.

I bought a reproduction grille and installed the original trim pieces and my custom GT fog lights with their zinc-plated mounting brackets.

The back bumper was bolted on around the same time. Both bumpers need re-chroming at some point in the future. The rear bumper is also slightly bowed.

At the end of January 2016, Amy and I took an early morning trip to the world famous Turlock Swap Meet, where, among other things, I was finally able to locate the third member I've been looking for all these years. Older readers may recall be interested to know that I have been rolling the car around on a 3.00:1 gear ratio, which just happened to come with the eight inch rear axle I acquired for this project, while searching for something a bit lower....at the right price.

The key here, as often, is price. I was reluctant to drop a thousand bucks on a complete third member when I already had one, and I was quoted a similar amount for a local shop to swap out the gears....so I sat tight and waited.....and then found almost exactly what I wanted (3.40:1 rather than 3.50:1), at a price I could not quite believe.

The following weekend the housing was painted with Eastwood brake gray and installed with a new gasket and some shinny copper nuts and washers that I got from NPD.

Lovely-Jubbly!

Back to work on the engine...I installed the distributor and most of the under-hood wiring was done by this point.

The valve covers had been wrapped up and stored for over three years when I broke them out in March 2016. The export brace came from a Turlock visit in 2011. Installing the brace was seriously difficult but I made it fit.

Looking good...

Looking even better...

valve covers and intake manifold

I've been slowly limping towards rebuilding my 351W, narrowing down the spec. and buying parts. One of the things I always intended to buy off the shelf was a nice shinny pair of valve covers. The ones that came with my engine were not in the best shape...and it's the one thing that everybody looks at! But I just could not find anything suitable. The nearest thing was a pair of stock reproductions that I could customize, but why go to that much effort on a repro part? So I went back to the original parts and dug out my trusty wire wheel. I knocked out a few small dings and then I sprayed on several coats of the same red paint I used on the rest of the motor.

I think the embossed text is the most exciting feature

Now this is where it gets interesting. I wanted to paint the raised text a different color. I don't have the steadiest hand, so using a stencil was mandatory. I tried a couple of ways of doing this, starting with a crude attempt to make a template using a wax crayon and some of the "Sticky Mickey's Automotive Masking Film" I bought from Eastwood. It was not very successful. Next I tried some 1/16 inch wide masking tape to trace out the individual letters. This is a very time consuming process if you want to get it spot on. I bought some good quality tape which was easy to stretch and bend for the curved sections, but also easy to keep straight. And it was easy to cut with a semi-sharp razor blade too. The most difficult bits were the insides of the closed letters (o, d, p etc). I cut some of these from Mickey's not-all-that-sticky wide tape. When I was happy with the outline I added more tape and masked off everything else. Then I had to do it all again for the second cover.

It took a few seconds to spray on half a dozen coats of the Eastwood brake gray I've been using throughout the project. When the tape came off I feathered the edge of the gray with some 0000 steel wood and then I sprayed on several coats of clear coat. Two more parts completed!

There's been a few intake manifolds linked with this project over the years. There was the unit that came with the six cylinder engine for a start. I don't even have a picture of that one. There was the stock manifold from the 302. That one came wrapped in clingfilm....and that is how I last saw it too. I never unwrapped it because I acquired an Edelbrock performer 289 aluminum manifold (with free duct tape) on the same day as the 302 motor. After I decided not to use the 302 for this project I passed it on to my friend Larry, and the aluminum manifold went too. All of this left me with a stock manifold for the 351W, which I didn't really want to use, so I started casting around for alternatives.

After mentioning my needs to several of my buddies in BAMA I ended up with this 4-barrel Edelbrock Performer 2181 from my friend Brian. Apparently the "dual-plane design and 180 degree firing order...boosts torque over a wide rpm range, from idle to 5,500 rpm. These manifolds also deliver improved throttle response over stock intakes." I wasn't as keen on the green paint however.

There were several options for getting rid of the ghastly green:

1. Paint over it....too many chips, bumps and peeling paint.
2. Wire wheel...not a smart idea with aluminum and too many hard-to-reach places in any case.
3. Paint stripper....messy and time consuming given the multitude of contours.

So I took option 4, and handed it over to my buddy Chuck. He took the manifold to his place of employment and ran it through their industrial-sized sand blasting cabinet. (After work, of course!) When it came back the manifold had also been treated to several layers of clear coat and had all the bores re-tapped. So better than new in other words. Not bad for just a case of PBR!

Job done