The exhaust manifolds were also cleaned up, as were the ports.
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Ford's idea of a power steering "cooler". This runs in front of the front cross member. Much of it was so caked in sludege that we weren't sure what we were scraping off until we found the bolts to remove it. It cleaned up fairly well.
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The cleaned up cross member. What a difference.
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The engine was taped off for painting.
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Ford blue is a very nice color, in my opinion. Yeah, factory would have been gray, but Old Ford Blue looks better.
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The repainted firewall and cross member.
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When you can't find a wireloom that you like, make one the redneck way with zip ties. We even color coordinated them with black and blue to match the engine.
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The engine was almost fully assembled to ensure that everything fit and worked. It cannot be installed with some of this bolted on.
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One very nice looking CLEAN power plant.
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Going up. Time to stick the new engine back into the clean engine bay.
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It is so much easier to hang onto now.
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Crawling into the engine was getting old in a hurry. Our son got to do most of that.
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Time to assemble this beast for the final time.
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One reassembled engine.
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All the plastic tubing was cleaned up as well.
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New hoses and belts were installed. We didn't want to run any risks on the trails.
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A new hood to body seal was installed, as was the little plastic cover over the throttle body, straight from the pick-a-part salvage yard. We almost named this beast the Junk Yard Dog since we had to do a lot of digging for parts in the local yards.
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We were tired of the climb to reach anything in the engine bay, not to mention the roof. This creeper came up on the local Craigs List for sale.
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It fits great with the current stance of the vehicle.
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Now this is more like it for reaching the engine. However, the padding could definitely be improved.
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The transmission had continued to not move the vehicle more than a slow crawl, so Kurt decided to replace the old E4OD transmission with a new one. He opted to pay more for a bullet-proof Monster Transmission. The new transmission has finally arrived, after 6+ weeks of waiting . Hindsight being 20/20, we would NEVER have bought this trans.
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A nice new transmission ready for installation. This should solve all the transmission problems, right? Wrong.
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Since the new transmission had finally arrived, the old transmission was removed.
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Along with the old transaxle.
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A new exhaust system was purchased and installed, since the old one had multiple holes. A posi rear end was located at a local salvage yard, cleaned up and installed.
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The transmission brace was cleaned up, metal worked to remove a large dent, and painted.
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