Stuff my dog says; on second thought I'll just build a race car

Well, that was probably overly ambitious for a weekend but it's all back together. The way the oil pan gasket goes on this thing is pretty idiotic. I mentioned earlier to a coworker that seems to be the way it is with this engine is they only had really good ideas or really stupid ideas with nothing in between. There is a filler panel that holds the front parts of the oil pan seal, but the sides of the oil pan gasket sit between this filler panel and the block. The engine mount carrier plate also bolts to this filler and is seals to it along with the block and head, but that carrier plate also curves back under the oil pan making it very difficult to get the pan in and out with the carrier plate in place.
So really you need to put the sides of the oil pan gasket on the block and put the filler piece in place. Then bolt the carrier plate into everything so the front of that filler plate lines right up with the front of the block and head otherwise that won't seal. At that point though you have to take the carrier plate back off so you can get the oil pan on and sealed up. Then you can put the carrier back on (which has two gaskets) at which you can put the timing chain assembly on and the timing cover.
The caveat to this is that I couldn't do this. Those things all seem like they'd be easy with the engine on a stand, which mine wasn't it was still bolted in the car....mostly. So the engine was still in the car bolted to the transmission which was bolted to the transmission mount which means taking the engine mount carrier plate unbolted meant holding the engine up with an engine hoist. The problem there being that with the engine hoist holding the engine up I didn't have room to get the oil pan up there. What I ended up doing was take the laughably small number of bolts that secure the carrier plate to the block (3) and add some surrogate bolts to increase that number using the holes that are also meant for the timing cover and letting the engine back on that so I could get the engine hoist out of the way to put the pan on. As mentioned above this is not ideal so I'm really just praying at this point the pan doesn't leak.....that means doing all this again. With the pan on I lifted the engine with the hoist again to take stress off the carrier and put the rest of the engine back together.
I did take the opportunity to move the timing a tooth so the guide can be bolted a bit more securely. Speaking of weirdly stupid decisions, that guide bolts to the carrier plate with through bolts so no real good way to keep that sealed up.
In the end, it's back together and the oil temperature sensor is in there. Reckon we'll find out in the next few days if it all worked.
 
Put some effort into picture. Idea being to blow one up poster size to frame and give to my parents since they don't really appreciate the car in the first place.

I'm leaning towards this one
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Well, time for things to get weird. I'm waiting for the blower stuff to be cut by someone else. Today would've been a great day to get the car out and drive with the body done for the first time, but a different guy said he could get me a deal on some VR-1 oil so I'm waiting on him to come through on that. That means I'm down to a couple trim things and the seat. So I made a couple trim things, panels for switch call outs (that I'm going to have to wait on a guy to laser letter) and a shifter trim piece that's easier to laser letter than the whole shifter at once. Made those yesterday and today I sand blasted and painted some stuff.
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More painted stuff, trying out a white
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As it turns out I had two rather important car related conversations today. The first of which was giving the information and money to the gentleman who will be getting a VIN and a title issued for the car. So in about 30 days the car should officially be a car. The second was a talk with my insurance agent in what was sort of a "we're here we may as well do this" situation. I was surprised to learn that the agent thinks that they will be able to cover the car once it has a VIN and that she would do a little home work in the ensuing 30 or so days to verify that idea. My expectation all along has been that I'd have to go through a specialty carrier to have any hope of getting this insured so even just this statement of I think so was a pleasant surprise. There was the elephant in the room question of an estimation of value of the car to which I've no real clue.
 
When I worked at the lumber/hardware place, one of the regular customers came in for some fasteners.

As a normal part of the transaction, I asked him if he wanted his receipt and he said "Absolutely! I'm building a car and when I apply for a VIN I have to show every single receipt from the building process."

Seemed odd to me, but DMV has had stranger requirements...
 
Good news, I put oil in it and ran and revved the engine and there isn't a puddle on the ground. Without draining the lines or the oil cooler it took 8 quarts so I'm betting on a 9 or 9.5 quart capacity with the cooler remote filter and new oil pan.
No driving yet, I had to glue the window glass in so that needs time to set up. Tomorrow I think the drive is going to happen.
 

Short drive today but probably the fastest I've had the car up to at around or a little over 50mph. Sort of the first time it'd been out with the full body made but technically the second as there was a quick couple hundred yards done before this then brought it back to the parking lot to check the extreme looking wobble to the left front wheel. Checking everything out it seems OK with nothing loose and the wheel not bent so I'm guessing it's the used wheel spacer I have on there not being true.
Engine was running lean again, which it was a little last time I drove it and that was several months ago so not a real shock there. I do have a slight oil leak left coming from the passenger side of the timing cover which is aggravating but it's at least better than it was before all the resealing. Everything else is all good.
 

Short drive today but probably the fastest I've had the car up to at around or a little over 50mph. Sort of the first time it'd been out with the full body made but technically the second as there was a quick couple hundred yards done before this then brought it back to the parking lot to check the extreme looking wobble to the left front wheel. Checking everything out it seems OK with nothing loose and the wheel not bent so I'm guessing it's the used wheel spacer I have on there not being true.
Engine was running lean again, which it was a little last time I drove it and that was several months ago so not a real shock there. I do have a slight oil leak left coming from the passenger side of the timing cover which is aggravating but it's at least better than it was before all the resealing. Everything else is all good.
Sounds fantastic!!!
 
Gave the framed picture of the car to my parents last weekend, I don't recall hearing a thank you. I changed the carburetor jet in the one barrel after work tonight, didn't have an easy way out of the lot to actually test it but maybe that'll happen at some point. Times have been crazy and it's not going to get better on the weekends soon.
 
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