Progress report: part III

I'm dragging my nether regions on this project. So finally about 6PM this evening, I said to myself, "I ought to at least get the prep work done".

That took three hours.

First up was the sensor plug on the transmission. The plug itself is fairly robust. The wire leads attached to it aren't. I got the new plug spliced in and then just for good measure ran some heat shrink tubing around the leads that will add another layer of protection.

Next was the intake pipe from the rear of the water pump. As I've mentioned before, the pipe is in sections with collared couplings between them. The junction where the heater core return line joins the radiator return line was badly corroded. There was also some pitting on the inside of the pipe. Causing me to yank yet another replacement part from the '94...

The engine compartment is extraordinarily dirty. What I really need to do is blast that puppy out with a pressure washer. Hmmm, I wonder if Manny would be willing to loan his out?? Or perhaps my generous (ex) father in law Bob would be willing to let me have his for a day or two.
Or, I could just try the jet nozzle on our garden hose...

I just don't see the sense of re-assembling that engine with newly machined parts and shiny new seals and have all those crud coated fenders and body panels surrounding it.

I also set up the worktable in the garage and spent a half hour getting the manifolds back on the heads. I managed to find enough pictures to figure out where the various hangers and extra bits belong. After all, I no longer have an assembled engine to look at; I'm doing the rest of this job from memory!