[dlisabeth]

I have made quite a bit of progress over the last week and a half. I cleaned up the frame from the firewall to the bumper with the help of a wire wheel and paint thinner. I fabricated and welded a plate to the frame to correctly install the power steering gear box. The firewall was cleaned up using the same wire wheel/ paint thinner method. I filled a few holes in the firewall including the clutch hole which I will not be using and a few holes made by the previous owner for misc. wires. I then primed both the frame and firewall with epoxy primer before covering them with 2 coats of Rustoleum black hammertone paint. I spent the day yesterday installing the new front suspension and replacing the wheel bearings in the rotors I had turned. It was pretty satisfying to mount up the front wheels/tires and set it back on the ground. The next step was bolting the motor and trans together and carefully setting them in their new home. This process went very smoothly and the motor mounts lined up perfectly with the motor. The motor and trans will be coming out again so that I can get the trans flushed and install a new filter and lockup kit in the 700r4 after I fabricate a new transmission crossmember. I was very happy to see the front suspension sag quite a bit under the weight of the motor. I am hoping that the additional weight of the front clip and other accessories will drop it a bit more.

One big issue that I ran into while I was installing the motor is that my new hooker HOK 2466 headers do not fit. They hit the motor mount tower on the driver side and the frame crossmember on the passenger side. I was very surprised by this because I have read several threads on this forum about other members that are successfully running these same headers. I guess I will be selling these and trying to find another set that will fit. Does anyone have any suggestions? I am not set on the shorty's and would consider a long tube header as my truck will only have a 3/5 drop so ground clearance shouldn't be an issue.

I will be tackling the transmission crossmember next at which time I need to decide if it is worth trying to maintain an opertaing parking brake. In order to do so I will need to fab up a new cable mount on the crossmember and figure out a way to hook up the new disc brake calipers.

Enjoy the pictures.