Today was what felt like actual, real progress toward a running engine. I got over a hump I'd been on for several weeks due to schedule, holidays & apprehension of a timed step to seal up the case which will forevermore affect my garage floor.
It went surprisingly well, I'd digested a dozen forum threads and read (and re-read) the engine manual several times so I'm hoping I did it right. I heeded the warnings of clean clean clean, I laid out all my bolts/washers/nuts, sockets & torque wrenches (w/ pre-set torque values) all in order so I could proceed quickly without stopping.
I made the rod & chain supports out of $5 worth of strip aluminum from the Depot, worked quite nicely.
And finally I get to see again a mated case.
Just a little note, as opposed to the way I showed my engine mounted to the ebay yoke when I first mounted it I mounted it flush against the bell housing this time (as I think is intended) . I will of course have to take the engine off the stand to attach the oil cooler but I think this is a whole lot more secure until I get to that point and I'm hoping I can just save that and the cross pipe till the end and just mount them before the install. I shall report as I learn more.
And the project is put to bed for the night, trying to be careful to make sure I keep it all wrapped up since I started the actual reassembly so as not to introduce garage dust into these elements I've worked so hard to get clean.
