Timing

The seal for the timing cover is in. It, along with the reproduction bolts and the timing tab, will go into storage until the engine is ready for assembly.

In the middle of the road

About 10 years ago, this Snap-On piston hammer was laying in the middle of the highway before this guy scooped it up. It's not seen much use until today, but it came in clutch to drive out the pistons from the block.

These pistons will be set aside until this engine is being rebuilt since I would expect that the rods will be fine to reuse.

There is a little more scoring evident now that the pistons are out, but nothing very deep. The machine shop should be able to take care of this and get this block ready to rebuild.

Better than predicted

The intake manifold, once rusty, looks brand new again after a few days in acid and a little bit of elbow grease.

A die grinder and a few tools with wire-wheel attachments took of the remaining engine paint and left this looking shiny and new.

This will get a light coat of rust converter before being set aside.

Can't wait to see this under a shiny coat of orange paint.

Out of the bath

The intake manifold is largely free of rust and looks great. What is left is mostly the remnants of the engine paint and the rust that it is covering up. A quick once-over with a Dremel tool and this should look brand new.

This weekend, this will be cleaned up and rust proofed.

Rust

The intake manifold is correct by date and casting, but it's really rusty. Since this cannot be sandblasted, it's spending a few days in a tank of acid to remove the rust without risking putting sand into a freshly rebuilt engine.

Overnight, it already looks better with about a third of the rust gone.

A few days from now, this should look as good as new.

Best effort

Since the original tank sticker is long gone, this is the closest that we're going to get to getting this back to original condition.

Funny thing is, once the body is back down onto the frame this is impossible to see.

Small stuff is big stuff

By some miracle, the original timing cover, tab and bolts are still with the car, but the cover and tab are beat. The top of the cover is nearly rusted through and the bottom is dented from pulling the engine in and out of this car.

Instead of trying to restore the timing tab, a NOS one was found and purchased since the original is damaged. A reproduction timing cover is available and it's a very faithful copy.

I see folks using the word 'restoration' to describe a car or truck that has been painted and fixed, but to this guy a restoration is putting the car back to its original condition.

The original cover bears a mysterious stamping of '-35' just above the oil seal for the harmonic balancer. Not sure what it means.

This car was among the first to receive this new design for a timing cover. The previous design bears a date stamping of month and year here, but none of that really matters because the water pump and harmonic balancer will cover this spot up.

Despite this, this stamp was recreated onto the new part to make it as much like the original as possible.

Turned out really well.