The adventure continues…

And good golly, look how happy I am!

So happy, I’m ready to dive in and remove the carburetor… I love working on my car!!!!!

So happy to dive in and even get a little dirty!

This was Jason’s view when I asked him for a 9/16″ socket. (He got to be Toolwench’s tool wench for a little while!) It’s also one of my favorite pics of the entire adventure:

He was marvelling that I fit so easily under the car without having to jack it up.

I really, really, really, really, really love working on my car. Really. I do. Ain’t it obvious yet?

It was nothing but fun… Okay, so there was some hard work involved… and a few broken nails…

In this next pic, there’s a few things to notice. You can’t really tell what I’m doing, but I’m installing the water pump bolts on the new engine. Of note, there’s my hubby’s Corvette. (Well, it’s mine, too. I just don’t drive it as often as he does. Hell, half the time I want to take it for a spin, I discover that he’d already left with it!) Also, notice the box that clearly reads “Hooker”? I had a bit of an oddyssey with those headers.

‘Cause y’know… I’m just a dumb girl. I dunno anything about cars.

According to the catalog, they’d work on my new engine. (I’ve got Dart heads.) But when Jason and I pulled them out of the box, he noticed that they didn’t match up too well. The ports on the heads were wide while the ports of the headers were tall. I ended up taking the headers back and bringing a template of the head ports. The guy behind the counter pulled out three sets and none of them fit right. Some were coated, some were painted, but no matter what I chose, I’d have to do some grinding in order to make them fit.

And…well…the girl in me told me to get the pretty ones. They happened to be Hedmans. You’ll see them later…and me grinding on them.

Look at how dainty and pretty my hands are… I use a special mixture of lotions… called antifreeze, oil, grease and dirt!

And I hadn’t even gotten underneath the car yet!

This was only the first day, but I’d made a lot of progress for only having worked an hour or so.

ot that I’m new to the whole engine swapping experience, but this was the first time I’ve ever taken pictures during the process.

So, without further ado, here’s the “Before” shot of the engine compartment of my 1968 Mustang (which I’ve had for about 13 years and plan to keep forever–maybe even be buried in it!)…

There’s not much to say about it other than when I’m done, it’ll look almost the same–only much faster!!!!

Remember, my car is not a show car. She’s a plain Jane daily driver and therefore, I need not wear a lab coat and sterlize everything. Hell, I can accidentally scratch paint, leave wires out of looms and use bolts that don’t match if I want to.

Of special hinky driver note, yes, there’s a rag plugging one of the holes in the firewall on the right hand side. It’d be plugging both holes, but it has fallen. No, this is not stock and yes I prefer the rag…otherwise, I’d have to get off my lazy ass, measure the holes and hunt down grommets–waaaaay too much work for a driver! I’ll bet there are several car enthusiasts fuming right now. Sorry guys, I’m just a dumb girl. I dunno anything about cars.

This was day one and my hands were still clean:

I dunno why I put the bandana over my hair. It seemed like a good idea at the time even though I had yet to be in a position to need my hair covered. Whatever. I was working on my car, for goodness sake, not going to a gala.

It was my job to get everything off of the engine so that it’d be ready to pull over the weekend. I started easy: Disconnect the battery, the ignition, pull the alternator and set it aside, empty the radiator, pull the heater hoses, pull the radiator hoses…and most importantly, try not to make too much of a mess because I was going to end up crawling around under the car at some point and there are few things worse than automotive fluids to get in your hair…thus perhaps why I put the bandana on my head prematurely.