I’ve made some big progress in the past week or two. I built a small overhead crane in my garage and have been using that to lift the engine in and out of the frame, as well as to move the frame around for the last of the reinforcements and cleaning / painting. I’m happy to say I was able to get all of the frame welded and POR-15’d finally.
On top of that, I went ahead and put the repaired body back on the finished frame with the engine in place. As expected, a lot of the firewall will have to be rebuilt, although I should only lose a little actual foot well area, and only on the passenger side. I need to run the down-pipe there, but I don’t think it should be an issue. I’m actually really happy with how the engine fits in everywhere, and the firewall reconstruction shouldn’t be super hard. Plus, with the engine further back I will have better weight distribution in an already lighter car.
You can see in one of the pictures below I also have a perfectly clear line to the steering rack, so no drama there!
Last small thing I’ve done is get in new copper-nickel brake tubes and new braided brake lines to help everything come to a stop!
