With the crank in the block and the pistons and rods assembled, next was putting them into the cylinders.

First, rods needed to be separated. The bolts were torqued down pretty good and I needed a little help loosening them. An impact wrench does the trick.

Then, on goes the ring compressor.

And placed in the block (with rod bearing installed and assembly lube applied. Also, make sure the crank journal for that cylinder is at the bottom of its stroke, so the con rod doesn’t ding it (don’t ask me how I learned that lesson!).

And placed in the block (with rod bearing installed and assembly lube applied. Also, make sure the crank journal for that cylinder is at the bottom of its stroke, so the con rod doesn’t ding it (don’t ask me how I learned that lesson!).

Torque the rod bolts.

Meanwhile, the reassembly of the body has stalled, waiting for a new headliner. The head, too, is MIA, still at the machine shop waiting for “the end of the week.”

Up next: oil pump, flywheel and the head getting back for the machine shop and then mating it to the block.

Avid readers will remember that the body work was chugging along, accomplishments each week to keep the momentum going, but the machinist seemingly was making no progress. For months he kept promising to be done “by the end of the week.” And then, about a month ago, “by the end of the week” turned into promises to finish “tomorrow.” The “tomorrow” promise went on for weeks.

Well, tomorrow finally came. About a week ago. For the lower end. Which was picked up and carted off to my garage, leaving the head behind to be completed, yes you guessed it, “by the end of the week.”

Since I knew assembling the lower end would take me a couple of weeks, I have not called the machinist about the head. Instead, I started chugging along.

Before assembly could begin, I needed to (wanted to?) paint the block. While I asked the machinist to do that about a month ago, I saw it was unpainted when I went to pick it up. My friend helping me advised, correctly, not to say anything. Rather, we took it home, I taped up the openings and primed and painted it, black.

Then I tried to figure out which way the end caps went (internet research helped as it wasn’t obvious from trying to fit them).

According to Stu, it’s best for the project to keep momentum. So, while there was certainly time to finish the body and paint work since my last update in early December, he chose to do a little each week (holidays excluded), slow but steady. This approach was perfect, as the motor parts were languishing in the machine shop, that turning into it’s own little comedy.

While it might have been a little overly dramatic to call the comedy with the motor a tragedy, I tried to appreciate the humor in the situation. For background, when I dropped off the block and attendant parts in November at the shop, the machinist said he’d be finished in about two or three weeks, as he reeled off a list of projects that sound like they wouldn’t be finished in twice that time. I was in no real hurry, as the justdashes.com was not going to finish my dash until mid-January at the earliest. That meant the body would not be ready for many months. So why rush on the motor?

Who knew that meant that more than three months later I still wouldn’t have the motor back from the machinist?

Now, to his credit, after 10 weeks of saying his work would be finished by the end of the week, the most recent time I called he said it would be done “tomorrow.” That was three days ago. But, progress!

Real progress: the slow but steady body work.

As previously reported, the hood and trunk were painted in November and in early December Stu finished rust repairs and priming the body. That continued a few days a week.

Almost a month ago, progress was slow but hopeful.

The car had been taken to Sacramento and the shell stripped down. Motor parts were ordered, acquired, and taken to the machine shop. I wrote about both tracks progressing, but slowly.

Since then one track is completely stalled, the other chugging along.

Stalled is any progress by the machine shop. He’s busy building another motor – this a 4 cylinder air-cooled Porsche variety. What’s taking so long isn’t clear, other than, well, it’s taking a long time. Frustrating.

Body restoration, however, is humming a long. Disassembly and repair continued. The torn spare tire well was touched-up. The rusty, torn piece was cut out.

And some sheet metal welded in and made to look pretty.

And blended in.

Rust was found hiding under the rubber trunk gasket.

And welded up.

The engine compartment continued to be cleaned up.

Around a month ago the engine-less shell was loaded on a trailer and taken to the body shop. About the same time I started delivering parts to the machine shop after deciding what to do with the engine (conclusion: squirrel away the genuine Alpina engine and build a bigger displacement, higher horsepower mill that retained the stock-looking K-Jet injection). The project was running on dual tracks, and neither has been rocketing along.

The post about loading up the engine-less shell on Stu’s trailer ended with some immediate progress: the front windshield was removed; because I couldn’t find a good used dash, the cracked one was sent off to be repaired; and a little rust was found under the rubber windshield gasket. Since the, Stu has been tearing the car apart and repairing it.

First, Stu had a bunch of holes to plug. The body had been drilled for USA sidemarker lights which had then been removed by a previous owner.

The motor is out. The rebuild decisions have been made, the path mapped out (mostly, more on that later). It’s time to focus on the body and interior.

While the car languished, waiting for my motivation to remove the motor, I tinkered with the body, interior, engine compartment and truck. For a while, I went back-and-forth on whether to paint the car. The clear coat was peeling off on much of the horizontal surfaces, way beyond patina. It was kinda cool. My wife encouraged me to leave it alone and I was tempted. My prior projects have only been mechanical restorations and I really like a driver-quality car with new mechanics. But the condition is way-worse than driver-quality and I do have a friend with a body shop.