A little progress, way more headaches.

I headed back out to the garage, after taking a bit of a break. I was rewarded with near record temps in the 90's and humidity nearly 100%. Over the last two days I drank an unmeasurable amount of liquid and came in soaking wet both days. If that wasn't enough, I made very little progress, though not due to lack of trying. It's just everything I did seems to have been full of problems. I did manage to get the gas tank, crank pulley, and seatbelts installed without issue. I fought with the headers, more so with the driver side...which took about 2 hours to finally get on. Then, as I attempted to install the pitman arm on the steering box, I realized it looks like I'll have to remove the driver side headers in order to get it on. I'm hoping I'll be able to loosen it enough and slip it on.

The passenger side header, which is way less congested, I figured was in the clear. That is until I installed the spark plugs yesterday and realized I don't have access to get the #2 plug tight no matter what I try, so that header will likely be coming off as well. Back to the pitman arm, I installed the steering box with the late model pitman arm still on it, thinking it would be easier to remove once installed. My impact wrench is on it's last leg, so I had to improvise and create my own breaker bar. A 12 inch breaker bar and two jack handles later, I had the leverage I needed. So much leverage in fact that it twisted the square drive off the breaker bar, though not before breaking loose the pitman nut. Next I borrowed a pitman arm puller from a friend and pulled the arm without much issue. That was when I discovered the new arm wasn't going to slide on like I had hoped, so that header may be loosened or removed.

Lastly, I got the exhaust partially mounted. I didn't want to spend too much time on it, since it too may have to come off when I remove the headers. Mostly, I just wanted it off the floor and out of my way, which bolting it on made the most sense. The last headache I had was when I tried to install the composite gear on my MSD distributor. After about a dozen attempts I realized it wasn't me, the gear had not been cross drilled straight. I just got off the phone with Comp Cams and it sounds like they will stand behind it, regardless of the fact that I bought the gear a few years ago. I just now opened it and realized it was defective. Shame on me, but thanks to Comp Cams for still covering their products against defects.

So as you can see, it was a miserable/discouraging couple of days working on the car. I'm going to take a couple of days off, then dig back into it on Monday. There really isn't any one overwhelming project left, aside maybe getting the brake system installed, which will be time consuming. Yet with things going anything but smoothly, with the clock ticking for the Dream Cruise, time is not on my side.