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.