Back in March, I began another engine swap. Big job, but I enjoy it. Welcome to my world:

Those fenders on the roof are for my fastback. After 9 years of being irritated by having ‘67 fenders on my ‘68 fastback, finally having the right fenders is gonna be suweet!!! I’m all about personalization, but I always hated having the wrong fenders. They were what was available at the time, though, so they went on my car after the wreck. My wonderful husband buys me car parts instead of jewelry and flowers and other frou-frou bullshit. How can I complain? He knows how to make me happy…

Since I’m so small, I can slide underneath without needing to jack up the car much… So there I am!:

This next series…I dunno. I just like the way it looked. I was pulling the starter and my husband was snapping pictures. Y’know, leaving the dirty work to me…:

And since I seem to learn something new each time I work on my cars, this time was no different. I discovered that this is the car’s original starter! It still works great, too:

Notice my muscles? Oh yeah… I’m a tough chick. Uh-huh. They’re a whole 7 inches around. Yep. You afraid now? Uh-huh. You know you’re terrified of my wimpy girlyness… Uh-huh… Check out my girly manicure, too:

That’s some scary shit, isn’t it? I’m amazed they stayed so clean!

I’m a little behind on my posting here. Life got busy for awhile and I didn’t have time to do more than a carb adjustment or two.

However, right after my last post, it was decided that the time had come to swap out the tired, seemingly unreliable 302 in my 1968 Mustang convertible with the reasonably new (only had about 5K on it when we pulled it out of my 1968 Mustang fastback), very reliable-feeling 302 that had been sitting on a stand, collecting dust for a few years.

It’s not that the engine in the vert was actually tired or unreliable, it just didn’t sound good. Piston slap, exhaust leaks…and why fix it when you can replace it with something better–which was the original plan when we dropped the 347 into the fastback.

Since my vert is my slow cruiser, it doesn’t need to go fast. It just needs to be reliable and fun. Thus, the reason we pulled the 302 from the fastback to put in the 347. That particular 302 was too smooth. It was a crate motor for a ‘94 Explorer. GT-40 heads and all. Ran great, but just wasn’t the hard, balls-out spanking that my fastback is about.

So, here’s the “Before” picture of my vert:

Yeah, that’s factory a/c. It hasn’t worked since I got the car, but it is factory. For the last 6 years, I’ve been saying I’ll make it work “next year” and you’ll see later why this year might actually be “next year”.

And here I am, ready to work. Got my hair covered already and I’m just sooooo excited to dive in:

Yes, you read that right. I was excited to dive in:

Strangely enough, both first casualties happened within the first hour or so. I wrecked my knuckle because I didn’t leave enough clearance breaking loose a bolt. It was bound to happen at least once and I’m glad I got it out of the way early:

The other first casualty happened to be the only casualty…and the reason why this year very well could be the year the a/c will work. But let me just say for the record, that I was not the one operating the wrench when this happened. This was compliments of my husband and while it was kind of a bummer, he promised he’d buy the replacement and get the rest of the system in working order. I can hardly complain. (I also wasn’t pissed in the first place, but don’t tell him that. He just felt bad and wanted to make reparations, so I wasn’t about to turn down the best excuse to get the a/c finally working! I’m sure it’ll be a team effort when the time finally comes.) I’m still kind of amazed that this was the only part that got broken beyond repair:

This was a weekend in March. It should’ve stayed cold, but SoCal weather warmed up enough that I had to change my shirt…to something more appropriate and girly…just ’cause. In the background was our ‘92 Camaro Heritage Edition. We sold it a few weeks after doing this engine swap because the car was so awesome and we just didn’t have the space, nor could we take care of it the way a car with only 3K miles on it needs to be taken care of. It has since gone to a perfect home somewhere in Florida. I miss the car, but since we couldn’t drive it, all it did was take up space, so I’m kind of glad it is now with someone who can more fully appreciate it: