If you don't remain flexible, you're bound to get cranky and crack.

I'm going to try and do as simple and clear an update as possible, mostly because my cell provider has throttled my connection and it'll probably take another 10 days for this post to upload (all of my surfing the information superhighway has been done via cell for the past several months.  Yes, I wrote all these posts on my phone.  Yes, I have myself and want everything to be equally tedious and unnecessarily difficult.).

The majority of my time lately has been split between searching for odd jobs to bring in some additional income and waiting for FedEx.  See, while I put far too much time into jig making, I neglected to apply the same thoroughness to confirming the numbers for my measurements were accurately transcribed.  This is diplomatic wording for "I didn't pay enough damn attention and fucked up the backup driveshaft."

So with that, the hunt for an appropriate replacement began.  This is what we ended up with:

It's a quarter inch longer than the stock driveshaft, which should be within the amount of play my slip yoke can provide.  If you're wondering why it's not installed yet: it was delivered yesterday while I was fighting against throttle valve linkage issues that Eagle was having (luckily, this was remedied by switching out and repositioning my throttle return spring).  Oh, and also, my flexplate is cracked.

I have no idea who or what managed to do this, but I've not done anything that would cause this to happen.  Luckily, the Sportabout provides once more and I've got the plate that came with the transmission.  As to the best of my knowledge, it looks to be a plate for the 258/232, and not the 304.  While some online stores say they'll work across the board, I'm really skeptical because the 304 wasn't internally balanced like the I6s.  I doubt that they swap out just fine, and a number of AMC greybeards are adamant that my suspicions are correct, so I'm going to take their word for it. 

So given that the flexplate is cracked, the trans is in the process of being decoupled as I type this.  I'll do a strict comparison once it's out, and that'll determine whether the Sportabout plate goes in or if I'm waiting for FedEx again.  Thankfully, should a new plate be needed, I can get one for under $40. 

Once that's done, I'll need to get back to doing the ujoints I'd started on, as the ones that came with the replacement shaft are of a different type (and the rattlecan spray isn't really confidence-inspiring).

Not thrilled about having to get conversion joints, but I'm not sending a ton of power or an unreasonable amount of torque through them, nor do I intend to take this car on the trail (at least until the day comes where I convert it into something along the lines of an Eagle kammback).  That said, I'm sure they'll do fine.

Lastly, in honor of the donor Sportabout I never met, here's a picture of a local Sportabout I've been trying to catch standing still for a couple years.  It's a '75 with a 304, and appears to have formerly been a city government vehicle.  The owner says he drives it constantly and has had it for over 20 years.  While his enthusiasm for his wagon seemed not to match mine, there's gotta be some love for it to be kept going for this long.  You can see Eagle creeping around in the upper left corner.

Alright, that's enough fucking around.  I'll let y'all know how things turn out when they get where they're going.

I'm finally done with prepping the driveshaft for the big day.  I made three sections for my jig, pictured here:

The first one ("A") took up way too much time and patience, as I was fucking it up because I didn't know what I was doing.  Not unlike raising kids (or so I'm told).

I was relieved once they could finally do what they're supposed to on their own, because that meant I could actually get back to doing what I needed to, instead of constantly correcting and messing with them.

Driveshaft is level and looks to be straight.  I'd go ahead with cutting it to get it over with, but it's too late to be running the bandsaw in my tarpaper shack, 20ft away from people's beds (though that's not to say that hasn't happened many times before).  Now that I think about it, there are balancers on each end of that thing, and I haven't marked their corresponding end with the radial point to line them back up correctly.  So I'll be doing that first thing when I get back.

Earlier in the day, I did a test on a new pair of "clench" wrenches I got in the hopes of making my ongoing struggles with line fittings lean a little less in their favor.  I decided to give them a shot after seeing a video a guy recorded, showing him loosening a brake line fitting with one hand.  The other hand was filming.

Now, I'm not a greedy person, so I wasn't hoping for anything more than the ability to consistently work on my line fittings without concluding the work by saying, "well, that's the last time that's going to be put on.  Better make a note to get a replacement tomorrow."  No need for one-handed sorcery- I'd just like to be able to perform maintenance on a critical system without mutilating its vital components every time I touch them.

I didn't want to jeopardize Eagle's brakes to test a wrench out, so I took a couple of spare line nuts and put a healthy amount of blue thread lock on before getting them good and tightly fastened, then set them aside for 12 hours.  I'm completely aware of the fact that this isn't even close to getting the salty brake line, but it's what I had on hand without going overkill or spending a ton of time on poorly trying to determine something I'll figure out at some point anyway.

I loosely clamped one fitting in a small vise to keep stuff reasonably in place, but still be a challenge, then decided to try and see if I could round off the vise nut with one hand turning  the wrench, and the other in my pocket.  Turns out it turned out.  I was able to easily free the top nut with one hand and without chewing the corners to hell.  I guess I'll need to go play with the brakes on the AMX to see if they do just as well with real world bullshit.

You should see this fence I've built. I've finally made it past journeyman.

Around a year ago or so, my friend and I were debriefing each other post-repair, which is nicer than saying we were screwing around and bitching about self-inflicted misery.

He started talking about how he has more stuff to do than time to accomplish it, and mentioned the fence around his backyard needing to be rebuilt.  To illustrate why this was a big deal, he started giving a loose description of prerequisite tasks that quickly became recursive. I said something to the effect of,

"Don't forget the time you need to spend learning about CAD software, so you can decide which program's going to be best to use for rendering a model and plans.  Not to mention the research on different material options and projected weather patterns for the next 10 years."

(NOTE: As I was writing this section, someone walked by the Eagle and said "nice fence!" to the owner of the adjacent house.)

We started joking more about it and coming up with more absurd dependency actions until the project would've cost somewhere in the neighborhood of $500K and a year's worth of man hours to complete before we'd had enough.  Since then, we've referred to situations where you're oblivious to the fact that you're adding many layers of needless complexity to a project, to the point of making accomplishing it less and less likely, as "building a fence", "fence building", and so on. 

The reason I'm sharing this anecdote with you is because I've been building a damn fine fence and want to tell you about it.

I'm lucky enough to have a driveshaft that I can use to make a serviceable replacement for the old one, and I don't want to waste my good fortune by being careless and sloppy when doing the work.  This means making sure the workpiece is secure while still being easily rotated when welding it, my cuts are square, and so on.

The crudely scrawled plans in the above image represent my concept for pieces of an adjustable leveling jig to hold the driveshaft in place while it's undergoing surgery.  The full jig is made up of three of these specialty tool and angle iron assemblies, which can be adjusted by adding washers to the joining fasteners, between the iron and wood. 

Far from a perfect solution, sure, but I'm just too damn neurotic to accept using big C clamps and winging the rest of it as a proper way to do this.  Regardless, I'm about to finish this smoke and go back in so I can get them wrapped up.  I just need to drill and countersink the bolt holes for two more and they'll be done. 

After that, I'll be able to waste hours on getting them adjusted until things are perfectly level from end to end.  If I complete that before the next ice age, then it's time to get to slashing and hacking the driveshaft to the point of ruin, followed by preparing a list of shops to call for quotes on Monday. 

If you can read this, you'd be home by now.

This update is going to be mostly a craft corner post, though I manage to free the prop shaft from the old driveshaft without ruining it, which took a loooooot longer than you'd think because of the level of attention demanded to keep it and myself from being rendered worthless.  The rest of the time was spent in transit and preparing the driveshaft operating table.

Something that was taken care of, though left undocumented yesterday, was bench testing the subject of our craft activity:

This is a compressor used to inflate GM Autoride bags, and was pulled from some  Oldsmobile mall assault crawler made in '01.  Due to its age, I was pleased to discover that it sounded like it runs without any problems at all.  It took a while to find documentation on the pinout, but basically all of the wiring beyond that tied to the momentary switch and the larger gauge orange (switched 12V) and black ground wires don't affect its operation; they're all connections to robot brains that make it turn on and off at different times.  Have a wiring diagram, if you care:

The amount of current it draws is enough to warrant mentioning.  If you get one of these, you'll end up needing to have a good couple amp source of 12V power.  When we tested it, my buddy's little bench power supply started flipping it's breaker at around .62A or so.  We ended up just taking it out to Eagle and connecting to the battery terminals.  It ran perfectly well at 12.8V, so I think it's gonna do just fine with a charging alternator providing juice.

After getting it all set up, I'll have a sort-of onboard air setup.  I won't be able to run air tools, but I also won't have to use any of those crap ass car lighter air pumps to air up my tires.  I'll also be able to use it to drive a pneumatic jack, and maybe blow filth off of things in the field.  I think it's a fair compromise between carrying a portable tank compressor around, and installing another heavy ass AC compressor in the engine bay.  What I'd really like to see how much effort it would take to set up a one-person brake bleeder.

I keep falling asleep as I'm writing this, so I'll share info about the driveshaft leveling jig once wakeup time rolls in.

The most helpful vehicle I've never met

While we strive to maintain the highest levels of accuracy in the information we provide, human error makes it inevitable that mistakes will be made at some point or another.  With this in mind, I'd like to issue the following correction: the driveshaft length between ujoint centers is 38-1/4", not 38" as previously reported, and there's not a single goddamned driveshaft I can get ahold of on this planet or its moon of the correct length.

So does that mean that the Gremlin is dead in the water?  Not a chance.  After having used the transmission that came out of a Hornet Sportabout when it was discovered that the Gremlin's transmission might not be the best candidate for a rebuild, that noble wagon has again stepped up to offer its body in service to a cause for others whom it has never even met.

See, the spare parts pile contains the driveshaft that accompanied that same transmission.  While it will have to be shortened from it's current center-to-center length of 50-5/8" to step into its new role, it's looking to be as though it should work out okay. 

I'm going to try to continue using the Gremlin's propeller shaft, though, since this one's seen better days.  It may have been a long-ass time ago, but days were seen.

There are also weights at each end, so it'd been balanced at some point; I'm guessing from the factory? 

At any rate, instead of being SOL when the old driveshaft got fucked up, I ended up with the opportunity to ruin TWO of them!  I mean, I'd rather not have to cut down a Sportabout driveline that appears to be in decent shape, but abuse what you can use, right?

I'd like to know why being in a comfort zone

Is so damn uncomfortable.

After a short burst of productivity and progress, things hurried back to business as usual.  It was time to get the ujoints sorted out, and lacking a vise with adequate jaw spread to do things the service manual way, I set about making a vise (of sorts) with the threaded rod I had left over from when I made the coil spring compressor tool and some angle iron. 

It kinda worked, in the sense that it performed the mechanical tasks it was designed to.  As far as actually serving to press out ujoints, though, it was unmitigated shit.  Not due to any fault in its part; it was just impossible to summon all the hands needed to make it go, even with a helper.  So after spending a few hours on that, I said to hell with it and drove across town to once-again make use of my friend's press.

This was a huge improvement.  Until it wasn't.  Long short, previous wear combined forces with slight misalignments that normally would've quickly self-corrected and caused the yoke ears to get eaten up by the bearing caps.  Seriously.  Both goddamned ends. Its fucked up.

The red circle surrounds a point of wear that caused binding with the bearing cap as it was being pressed back out, and instead of slipping past and leveling out, the cap decided to just send everything straight to hell. Again, this happened on both ends.

I knew what to expect when I checked, but I still find myself amused by the Google search results for a replacement part.

Close to 0 sounds promising, though 38" from ear to ear sounds better.  Let's see what we can find to use off-lable.

Here's hoping this is the last of it

Winter usually marks a period for me that's made up of spend-frenzy holidays that I vainly hope to avoid, several months of depression, and two (sometimes more) sleeping marathons that run anywhere between 72 hours and a week and change and bookend that piss-poor excuse for a season.  By the looks of the hideous claws that have erupted from my fingertips and the blurred passage of the first half of this month, the beginning of winter's end has arrived.  So this is probably a good time to discuss heat shielding for some reason.  I don't know.  I'm still waking up.

Anyway, here's what you get, straight from the hell of cold dreams to the hell of cold, glowing rectangles:

1) Want some fancy ass, moldable aluminum stuff like the BMWs get, but don't want to pay $40 for less than a square foot of material?  Too bad. 

What you can do, though, is get some cheap aluminum sheet (roof flashing, garage dog trespassing sale shot signs, whatever) and sandwich fiberglass mat or ceramic insulation material (maybe header wrap if you happen to have some extra) between two aluminum sheets and roll the edges over to seal the deal.  If you want it to be embossed, get a shaped rolling pin or some perforated steel sheet and mash it down on the surface to emboss your pockets.

2) This one's probably less likely to be useful, but I have pounds and pounds of thick-ass copper clad board from a free lot of surplus electronics components I picked up a few years ago. The copper can be etched away with a muriatic/hydrochloric acid and peroxide mix, and the byproduct will make a handy etchant solution for future use, should I need it.  If you're unfamiliar with the process, here's an "instructables" tutorial that covers the details:

http://www.instructables.com/id/Stop-using-Ferric-Chloride-etchant!--A-better-etc/

Once the copper has been etched off, the heavy-gauge, bare board material can be epoxied together for carb spacer material, since I suspect that having an insulating spacer is going to be a pretty handy thing to have alongside the mixture jet kit.

You may have noticed a change in tone with this update, and I wish I could attribute it fully to poor temperament after a week-long nap, but that wouldn't be honest.  See, I found a perfect solution to my column shifter cable need.  Yeah, I'm in a pissy mood because I have a cheap ($17 vs $60) and easy solution for what could be a challenging problem.

If you're wondering why this may be, the answer's actually really simple: it's a cable for a Toyota Camry.  This is the first part from a non-domestic make vehicle to go in Gremlin since I started all this. 

Now I'm going to directly contradict myself here and acknowledge the fact that the 4.0l head, intake, and exhaust aren't technically domestic, as they're design iterations that were developed when Chrysler was actually DaimlerChrysler AG.  So my hair splitting has once again allowed me to come up with a thin, yet convoluted excuse to compromise on an important requirement for this project (an American AMC restomod, if it could be called such).  Either way, I'll probably swap the cable out one day in the future for one that doesn't start causing the xenophobia to act up.  Looks like a nice cable, though.

No mas piranhas, indeed!

So the transmission cross member fitment issue turned out not to be an effect of how fast back the motor was seated.  What actually happened was a result of my mixing up which cross member was from the Gremlin, and which was from a Sportabout.  Whoops.

Luckily, it took less than 10 minutes of messing with stuff after getting the motor mounts cinched up to figure this out.  It probably took longer to scrape the ATF mud off the correct support, and it installed with no trouble.  Check it out;

The Gremlin's going back up on the lift next, at which point the rest of the transmission bolts will get fastened, along with the torque converter and inspection plate hardware.  The driveline gets put back in from there, and the engine bay will be populated shortly after. 

In a bit of good bad news, I found that the cooler lines I had ordered wouldn't fit my application, so had to cancel the order because it would take longer than my timetable have allowed for them to be delivered.  Shortly thereafter, I un-misplaced the original lines and discovered they were nowhere near as bad off as I remembered.  I'll actually be able to use them with a slight amount of work- far less than if I went with the original plan I'd had before placing the order in the first place.

If all this progress is making you feel uncomfortable, don't worry; it's strange to me, too.

Old transmission sits in the corner and sulks. The reason why may surprise you!

It's because I managed to do this after crushing my ring finger like a grape:

If the image doesn't make it clear, I got the engine and the rebuilt transmission together!  They were a little shy when I began introducing them, but friends can quickly be made when a bleeding and angry ape with a wrench in his good hand screams threats at you about what will happen if you don't act polite.

Now it's a matter of finishing my smoke, going back inside, bolting the cross member (back) on, and fastening it to the frame rails.  After that, I'm done for the day.  Mainly because next steps involve getting the Gremlin off the ramps and back up on the lift (after I reassemble it), and I just don't have the nerve left in me today for that mess. 

Once suspension resumes, I have to get the rest of the bell and torque converter bolts done, then it's time to start loading crap back into the engine bay.  This thing may actually end up looking like a car at some point, as opposed to the boat it's been for so long. Time will tell. . .

Shop-borne Illness and Disease Index, Vol 1, Chapter 9: Bigfinger

Bigfinger is one of many conditions that can affect the digits when present in a workshop, and should be safeguarded against whenever possible.  Bigfinger generally occurs in situations that include, but are not limited to, the swinging of a hammer (actual or improvised) or the maneuvering of heavy objects in tight spaces. 

Bigfinger is not a pathogenic affliction, rather, it is brought about by the introduction of an object consisting of harder-than-finger material, possessing considerable weight or moving at a fair rate of speed (usually both) that becomes introduced to the last segment of the phalange.  A transmission falling from a jack is a prime example of such an object and conditions that can produce bigfinger.

It is generally accompanied by some or all of the following: loud verbal ejections from the mouth, feelings of numbness in the affected digit, blood, waving of the hand, and in some cases, improvised dance.

Bigfinger is common enough to expect that it will not be a matter of "if" you contract it, but "when".  Depending on the severity of your case, treatment options range from ignoring the affliction until feeling returns in the digit the next day (when it will no longer be something that can be ignored), to stitches, to binding in a splint.  As usual, amputation is an alternative treatment method, though may not be optional in some cases.

Salute to the cotter pin

This update will focus on some of the wide variety of uses that can be found in our never-reusable friend, the cotter pin.  More than just the keeper of castle nuts, this simple bit of shaped wire has many tasks that it can fulfill beyond guarding against unwinding disasters.

While not the most glamorous off-label function it can be assigned, the cotter pin is a fantastic personal grooming device.  Those chunks of undercarriage debris that make their way right into your ear, nose, or medial canthus?  The ones that you have no hope of dislodging without removing the nitriles you just put on and don't want to waste?  Cotter pin can help you out, no problem!  Likewise, whenever you have an obstructed pore that's irritating the hell out of you and distracting from more worthy subjects of your attention (power tools being operated, an engine in mid-lift), the cotter pin makes a perfect expression loop.

Of course, the extra roles of the cotter pin aren't just limited to orifice scraping or infection relief.  The cotter pin is equal friend to dermatologist and researcher alike!  If you make regular use of your service manuals and can't find what you're looking for through all the dogeared pages, time to quit making corners pointless and open up the plastic box that contains hundreds of eager bookmarks in waiting!  Marking your place by clipping a cotter pin to the page makes it easier to find what you're after- especially if what you're after is a cotter pin in the middle of a ball joint change.

Cotter pins can be used in a pinch for securing wire or small lines if the old fastening loops have been broken off or lost.  Just feed the pin through an available hole, with the loop end on the other side of the panel from what you're trying to secure.  From there, spread the legs of the pin apart and wrap them around whatever needs to be kept in place while you're tracking down a more appropriate replacement.

The cotter pin's potential as picker, poker, and prodder are likely obvious, but what about tweezer?  You can file the ends of each leg to suit your needs, bend them slightly apart near the loop, and you'll find you now have tweezers that rival a lot of purpose-made sets.

When all is said and done, the cotter pin has a potential for nearly-limitless use.  I'll share even more uses for these underappreciated bits of mystery metal in the future.  Just remember the one thing it can't do: be reused.  Never reuse cotter pin.

Whatever I finds, I keeps

I'm learning to appreciate whatever measure of progress is made over being disappointed when I routinely fall short of my expectations.  Going to war with the army as the Romans do, or something to that effect.

In keeping with that approach, I'm choosing to keep my focus from the fact that my plans for the cooler lines just involved too much damn soft hose to not end up making my transmission's fluid circuit into a (temporarily) mobile, incredibly flammable version of a toy in an old SNL skit (do yourself a favor if you don't immediately get what I'm referring to.  I'll even provide the link:

http://www.nbc.com/saturday-night-live/video/big-red/n9512?snl=1

It's two minutes you can spare).

Instead, I'm focusing on being able to get a set of replacement lines from American Parts Depot for $40.  They had a stainless option for $70, but I'd rather have something I can stand a better chance of cutting and flaring if something happens and I need to do a field repair involving the cooler lines.  I also don't want to spend the extra $30.  To be even more honest, I'm glad to pay the $40 just to not have to do any more damn work involving fluid lines than I already had/have to.

The other bit of progress that I'm happy with is that I managed to get the front wheels on ramps without being horribly killmaimed.  The floor jack doesn't have enough lift to bring the wheels off the ground to where I can fit the ramp platform, so I had to do some incredibly stupid shit to get the ramps in place.  This involved:

1. Putting a my favorite specialty tool on the jack pad to increase the lift height before jacking the front up under the cross member
2. Arranging more specialty tools below the lower control arm, placing a bottle jack on top, and lifting to its maximum reach
3. Wedging a jack stand next to the bottle jack, lowering the jack, stacking one more specially tool, and lifting again
4. Forcing the ramp underneath and into place
5. Repeating the process for the other wheel

I was expecting this to end up as a bloody nightmare of a failure, and by all accounts it probably should've been.  Thanks to wooden blocks, the exits can move forward and I still have all my blood and limbs.

After I finished with that, I made sure that there was a basic level of support under the rear of the engine, then came out here to sit in Eagle for a smoke and to give my supernatural protector (as well as my nerves) a rest, which is when I figured I'd write this.

Once I finish up with this smoke and post, I'll be heading back in to figure out how that transmission's getting elevated.  There's not sufficient clearance between the firewall-end of the engine and the bell house when the car is evenly seated to allow getting the cross member threaded to the frame, otherwise I would've had that taken care of from the get-go.  I'll either figure something out when I get back in there, or I'll say to hell with it and be glad for the day's gains. 

As the saying goes, "A bird in the hand is worth twice as much in an ass-kicking contest!"

A frenetic pace is a perfectly viable substitute for

Luck, planning, knowledge, skill, or any mix of the above.  This isn't my opinion; I'm just reporting the news as it happens.

In the wake of my tubing getting tied up due to questions of size, I managed to brute force my way into making progress.  Seriously, check it out.  Today I:

• Got my tubing lengths cut and flared (minus two)
• Cleaned and PORed the section of the transmission tunnel that needed it
• Raised the car and developed a means to lift the transmission loosely into place
• Cut and bent the trans cooler lines up to their first soft segments
• Attached the shift levers and kickdown linkage
• Attached the cross member and transmission
• Vacuumed, kinda (believe me, this counts)
• Posted 3 updates 

And were it not for the two fittings for the trans cooler lines going missing, I would've started putting the transmission in an hour ago.  

Their disappearance is probably for the best, though, since those fittings were 40 years old and pretty well conformed to the flare ends of the original cooler lines.  It's likely that I would never have gotten them to seal worth a damn.  That's what I'm telling myself, at least.

I also became aware of the fact that the column shifter linkage that AMC used is hanging out right through where the new exhaust will need to run.  

Since every bit of space is going to count here, I decided it needs to go and promptly removed it (so add another bullet to the bandolier).  I've also decided that I'll be replacing it with something that doesn't require a cable linkage kit that costs $185+s/h.  Let's see if that box gets checked.

Tightly wound? No, it's a balancing act.

And you're going to do a poor job trying to lasso a fish.  It's all because of scales.

See, I rented the flaring tool from the parts store.  Got a little bit of the same bad behavior I saw with the crappy tool I was using before when I didn't anneal the tubing, just not nearly as bad.  Once I recut, squared, and annealed the tubing, I got this on the first try:

Exactly what I was after and should expect to get.  Awesome!  That should've been all it took to alert me to my impending misfortune, but as I'm sure you can tell from the rest of this log, I'm not always a quick study.

Once I finished flaring the line, I went to grab the fuel hose I ordered around a month ago.  Back when it was delivered, I checked the box and confirmed it said it was 3/8" hose and figured it was good to go.  I'm sure you see where this is headed.  If not, then welcome!  You must be new here!

The return order has been submitted so I can send back the 5/16 hose that was in the 3/8 box.  In the meantime, I'm continuing to cut and flare my lines while pretending that I'm going to be linking all this mess together today and appreciating living a life of harmony and balance.

Flashback Tuesday, Common Sense Wednesday

Yesterday was a flashback episode.  Worked on shocks, struts, fuel tubing, and choking back screams of fury/wails of despair.

Shocks and struts needed attention because they were installed with a large portion of the vehicle's sprung weight absent.  This left them unable to fully span the gap between their top and bottom fastening points (ex: top of shock tower to upper control arm).  With the engine weight now present, I was able to get the shocks torqued down. But the struts will have to wait until the car is fully lowered (at least the back end, that is).

Hours were sent trying to flare the fuel line segments that will be connecting to soft line before I finally threw my cheap import flaring tool in the trash where it belongs.  No matter how hard the line was secured in the clamp, the slightest pressure from the flaring press squeezed the tubing right out. 

It wasn't until I was falling asleep that I remembered that I had a reason for not using tubing cutters for this kind of thing: it work hardens the damn tubing.  It's hard to make work, so you have to work harder, when the work was already hard to begin with.  I previously used hacksaws to account for this, but I'm going to try annealing the tubing with a torch and slow cool.  I'm also renting a flaring tool that's worth a damn.

I also pulled the shifter linkage off of Gremlin's old trans.  Check out the bolt of anarchy:

The other is a little more plain, though I like the 'TF' symbol, which I presume is for TorqueFlite.

Okay, that's enough screwing around. I've got a car to build.

I have to admit, this is a little bit surreal

After several hours of lifting, lowering, checking clearance, mounting on engine stand, making adjustments, disconnecting from engine stand, and repeating the process after finding the engine couldn't be lifted high enough to clear the front end, I finally got this damn motor in.

If, for some fool reason, you decide to pull this motor and leave the AC system intact, beware the flywheel.  The flywheel has a nearly-unstoppable voracity for the compressor hose that runs across the firewall and will stop at nothing to sate it.  Maybe take the flywheel off or something instead of doing it the dumb way (my way, or that way. The highway).  I just kept stuffing harbor freight leather gloves between the two to keep them apart, which worked about as well as using the gloves as gloves.

Before setting out on that journey of pain and despair, I actually made sure to cut and drill that spacer for the idler pulley arm.  Nothing fancy, but here's the proof that I remembered something before it became a pain in the ass.

Last night I gave Eagle a much-overdue oil and filter change in the Asbestos Caverns.  Eagle was breaking it's oil down a fair bit more quickly than I would expect, and a few days ago I was getting some concerning valve train noise while moving down the highway at about 70 (and it disappeared without returning once I took an exit to further investigate). 

I found a gallon of Delvac in the AMX pit, which I combined with a little over a half-quart of Lucas that was buried under my passenger-side cache of recyclables.  Eagle's been responding really well to it so far.  Only confirmed downside isn't really a downside; I'll want to change the filter every 1k or so for a few thousand miles while the magic detergents do their work. 

There's word that the higher zinc content will foul the cat, but I don't know that this would apply to one from 1984.  Especially one from 1984 that I expect to take a look at in the upcoming weeks, only to find that a previous owner busted up the honeycomb hideout.  Not sure why, but I'm not really worried about cat zinc.

Armed Struggle: Pitman Exercises in the Asbestos Caverns

Eagle's pitman arm was toast a few hundred miles ago.  Binding, popping, and the ball-end of the arm wringing grease out of the top seal made this pretty clear, and the recent loss of brakes a little more than 20 miles away from the house underscored the need to attend to the matter.

The street in front of my house does double-duty as an off-season drag strip/parking lot, so I make it a point to avoid doing work under the car here whenever possible.  Add the rain, wind, and cold weather of winter into the mix, and it's just not an appealing venue for doing the kind of things that changing a pitman arm calls for.  After considering these factors, I decided to make the trip to do the work at the majestic Asbestos Caverns (a basement parking garage with a 2hr limit, under a 24hr grocery store).

If you're doing the pitman arm on an Eagle, let me share a couple tips:

1. The arm and tie rod puller you can buy off the shelf at O'Partsy's won't fit, but the rental tool will.
2. You don't have to pull off all the stuff that the TSM tells you to.  Really all that's needed is to remove the sway bar bracket bolts that thread into the bottom of the steering gearbox and the three mounting bolts for the gearbox itself (which are found in the wheel well).  
3. As far as raising the vehicle is concerned, I found it necessary to jack the front up about 6" or so.  Didn't even need to raise the wheels off the ground to get plenty of clearance to install the new arm (and I didn't have it raised at all to remove the old one).

If you're doing work in a nearly-empty parking garage at midnight, I have a few more tips:

1. Let's be clear: you're not wanted there.  Businesses don't want their garages to be used as garages for a number of reasons; trash, chemicals, noise, liability, and aesthetics are just a few reasons for this.  If circumstances call for you to take advantage of their parking lots or garages, don't be a dick.  Before you start working, go inside and buy a thing, mainly for the sake of being polite, but also to cover your ass if anyone takes issue with your being there.  Keep your receipt.
2. KEEP IT CLEAN.  Visually, aurally, olfactorily.  Leave your work area cleaner than it was when you arrived, keep your use of chemicals low-key and tidy, and do not use impact tools unless absolutely necessary.  Don't throw hazmat away in the garage garbage (if you're lucky enough to still have a place that provides trash cans), rather, pack it out with you and dispose of it elsewhere.  Keep things tidy as you work.  Don't do the tornado trash spew with the expectation of cleaning up after.
3. Pay attention to parking time limits.  I've nearly been towed because of a "quick repair" that unexpectedly ended up lasting long through the night and into the next morning.  You don't want this to happen, but for reasons more than what may be immediately obvious.  You don't want to sour your experiences with the people and organizations that you're trying to make use of, because that's one less place that you can go when you need to get things done.  Maybe more, as people often talk to each other and you can find yourself with a reputation before you know it- all it takes is one bad situation.
4. Keep your windows rolled up, doors locked, and all tools within immediate view and arm's reach.  If someone's going to help themselves to your stuff, what better time than when you're stuck halfway under a car?
5. Maintain awareness of your surroundings.  As alluded to in point 4, you're going to be doing work in a vulnerable position while in a (more-or-less) public place.  Keeping aware of what and who is around you will help you avoid bad actors and bad situations brought on by the bumbling around of others who may not be as attentive as you.

This is by no means a complete list, as a comprehensive look at the subject would require me to write a book.  It should, however, be enough to reduce your chances of being injured, robbed, towed, arrested, or run out of town.