I HATE BENDING HARD FUEL LINES!

Not a lot of progress was made on the car over the last week due to Christmas, but I did manage to squeeze in some riviting, drilling, and cleco'ing before we headed out of town to my parents house for 6 days. Yes, I had car building withdrawal.

My alternator arrived in the mail today, and I got it mounted along with the pulleys on the engine. As far as I know that only thing left on the front of the engine is to get the right size belt.

Rivit Rivit Rivit. The passenger foot box and floor aluminum has been rivitted in. I drilled and clecoed a couple new panels.

I looked at the fuel pump inlet fitting, and it looks like it's expecting a 3/8" fuel hose. The 5/16" hose I have just barely doesn't go on, and besides the line going from the outlet is 3/8" hose. So, I'm going to call Breeze and get the single 3/8" fuel pickup insert to replace the one I currently have, and then pick up an additional 6 ft section of 3/8" fuel hose. I'm going to coil some above the gas tank, so that it can be lowered and with the extra length in the fuel lines I should be able to remove the clamp (if I need to access it in the future). All in all this is going to cost about $120 to run the fuel lines. I'm also going to call AMP and see if they won't take the other pickup tank insert back.

I ordered my wheels and tires!!! I didn't go with the american racing hopster wheels, I went with Centerline Meteors with Kumho ECSTA MX tires. Total cost was $1770 shipped (ouch), they are due to arrive in 4 to 6 weeks. The wheels will be 17 x 8 in the front and 17 x 9.5 in the rear, running 245/45/17 front and 275/40/17 rear.

I torqued down the whole rear suspension and the front axle nuts. I cleaned up the starter plate some more, and have decided that it's clean enough to put on the engine. I looked at where I need to position the fuel filter bracket (if I decide to run it), and it needs to be notched out to fit around one of the 3/4" frame members.

I removed the oil filter relocator as I discovered I don't need to use when using 4 into 4 headers.

The brake lines are in!

Things that are left (that I know of) to do before the big engine drop day. I don't realistically expect this to happen until late January, early February

• Order March Pulley Kit, Alternator and bracket, and the correct AN fittings
• Run Fuel Lines
• Rivit down anything that the engine will make impossible to rivit later
• Paint and rivit the fiberglass steering shaft cover

Other stuff still on the big list of things to do

• Order the wheels and tires
• Figure out the whole E-Brake stuff

The rear calipers are in, and I mocked up the braided stainless brake lines.

I installed the front calipers and rotors.

The oil filter relocator is mounted on the frame.

I started to straighten out the FFR supplied fuel lines to see if I could get them acceptably straight. It looks like I'm going to use them.

I drilled the hole for the battery cables in the trunk aluminum, and installed the plastic grommit.

I also started to clean up the nasty used starter plate that I have that will eventually need to be mounted to the engine.

The engine is here!!! But no alternator or pulleys, so of course I have more stuff to buy now.

The Jeep MC is installed and I shortened the push rod.

I picked up a battery and installed the battery box.

I put the steering wheel on, and temporarily held up the dash to get an idea of what it is going to look like. There is about an inch of slop in the steering wheel. I can see what is causing it, but right now I'm at a loss as how to solve it. I can't be the only person who has had this problem, so it's off to do some research. I also drilled some more rivit holes on the passenger foot box. I had one panel on the wrong side of another and that made the alignment a bit better so it looks like I might not have to trim a panel I thought I was going to.

I stopped by the autopart store and picked up the "correct" Jeep MC that I ordered. I got lucky and got an aluminum one, woot!

I spent most of the night tearing down boxes and cleaning up the garage making room for the big delivery tomorrow... Yup, that's right, the engine is due to arrive tomorrow.

I ordered the right MC yesterday, I will pick it up today after work. I also ordered braided stainless steel brake lines for both the front and rear. I gave up trying to find my rear axle nuts so I ordered 2 new ones.

Here is a picture of some of the garage clean up that I did.

I bought a Jeep MC, but I got a cast iron one not the aluminum one. O well. I also picked up some preflared brake lines and the fittings are on order. They are supposed to arrive today.

I finished painting the rear calipers.

I got the rear suspension all in place, nothing is torqued down yet because I can't find my rear axle nuts, Grrrrrrr. I removed the electronic fuel pump from the gas tank and put in my ground pick up thing in its place. The gas tank is on the car, but per the instructions it is not fully tighened down as it will need to be lowered to get the body on later.