Continued work on the engine this weekend. Purchased a harmonic damper puller from Advanced Auto. The damper pulled off without a struggle. Replaced the front timing chain cover and the associated seal. Cleaned up the heads and block and painted them with Ford blue engine paint.
TOTAL TIME THIS WEEKEND: 10 hours
November 9-12, 2001:
Veteran's Day Weekend! We had a training holiday on Friday and I took that opportunity to do some work on the cylinder heads. I bought a valve spring compression tool from Napa and used it to change out the valve stem seals on the head. I took my stuff to the Ft Monroe auto craft shop to work on them. After about 3 hours of work, I was done. The process isn't that difficult once you learn how to do it.
Saturday was a wasted day since I went into work and had to wait to give a briefing for our General. We finally got to see him at 5:30 PM after waiting 6 hours to see him. On Sunday, I mounted the heads onto the block. I attempted to clean off one of the head bolts using my tap and die set and ended up screwing the head bolt up. I ended up getting another head bolt from a garage that specializes in Mustangs. I also got a fan shroud and the two hard fuel lines from them.
On Monday, I continued putting the engine back together and installed the water pump and valve covers.
TOTAL TIME THIS WEEKEND: 12 hours
November 13, 2001:
After class I worked on the alternate pulley bracket modification. After drilling the hole for the pulley I trimmed down the bracket using my angle grinder with a cut off wheel. It looks much better than the original bracket.
TIME: 1.5 hour
November 17-18, 2001:
Still working on getting the engine ready for installation. I also got the opportuinity to visit Greg Warden down in Virginia Beach on Saturday. His FFR is complete except for the paint and carpet. It looks and sounds great. He was also extremely generous by letting me have a set of control arms and spindles to fix the problem that I have with my camber. He also let me have all of the emission stuff that I needed. Thanks a bunch Greg! I hope to return the favor some day.
Saturday evening my friend Derrick stopped by to help me out. We installed the transmission tunnel aluminum piece that attaches to the foot boxes. I was totally dreading this installation since it didn't fit very well. With some grinding and bending we got it to work. I'm happy that it turned out fine. On Sunday I cleaned up more engine parts and began getting the control arms ready for installation.
TOTAL TIME THIS WEEKEND: 12 hours
November 22-24, 2001:
Drove up to DC to spend Thanksgiving with my friends, Nate and Kelly. Ate a lot of turkey at their house. Nate did pretty good making his first turkey ever. The secret is the brine! Kelly's sister was also there for Thanksgiving.
Spent Friday morning playing golf with friends from the Hampton roads area at Fairfax National Golf course. We spent the rest of the afternoon shopping at Tyson's corner with everyone's wives. That was exhausting.
Drove back on Saturday to work on my class project for my class.
Continued work on the engine this weekend. Purchased a harmonic damper puller from Advanced Auto. The damper pulled off without a struggle. Replaced the front timing chain cover and the associated seal. Cleaned up the heads and block and painted them with Ford blue engine paint. 