12 Jun 2009
Variety pack

The trunk latch finally arrived and has been installed - the trunk now stays closed.
If you'll remember back in 2002 when I found the driver's trunk floor was partially made out of window screen and bondo, there was also a suspicious blob forward of the bondo.

I pulled the blob off - and it appears to have been factory seam sealer; the drain plug is in almost perfect shape.

Still need to clean up the patch and prime/paint.
It started to look like rain again, so I busied myself doing little things that could be brought in quickly instead of removing the rear axle to do welding.  Here, I've painted the oil pan Chevy Orange.
Valve covers and breather, too.
If you don't have the key to the ignition, you can't do the paperclip trick to get the lock out.

You can, however, take a band saw to the lock.  That'll remove it.
It started to look like we weren't going to get any more rain after all - but the light was fading.

I got a coat of paint on the engine and attached the freshly painted pan with new gaskets (not pictured).  Ran out of paint, need to do one more coat.

Intention is to have a "stock GM" looking powerplant - no chrome, 283 style snorkel air cleaner, etc.  Thought about grinding the "Edelbrock Performer II" off the intake, but decided against it.

Also not pictured:
I need new green plastic for the turn signal indicators; mine was faded and one fell off.
I've cleaned up the face of the dash and it's ready for paint.
The bellhousing is in the parts washer soaking; there's a lot of dirt and grease on it.
I bought a replacement dipstick as I'd broken my existing one - that's another 8.99 spent. 

Still need to paint the air cleaner, brackets, pulleys (need to look and see if I have single-belt pulleys instead of the ones I had for the PS and AC), dipstick, fan, alternator fan, and various other little things.

Looks like when I took the old oil filter off, it took part of the spin-on adapter with it (oops).  Not sure if I can just buy that threaded part alone or if I'll have to buy another adapter, or maybe I have a spare somewhere (shrug).  Just saw that it was missing today.

Can't really put the valve covers on permanently yet, I backed the rocker arms off and will have to start the engine to get them reset.

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