Rattle can rattle can

After so long painting with a paint gun there was some reluctance to go with a rattle can paint for the engine. Yet, this is a two-part urethane engine paint from Eastwood is supposed to feature a nice fan tip for a paint gun-like finish. They are proud of their products — each can is $52 — but their products have proven to be worth it in the past.

We'll see.

More parts

This set of reproduction spark plug wires are offered by Lectric Limited in Bedford, Ill., and are really amazing. Only about twice the price of part store wires, these are exact reproductions of the originals down to the date code.

A Moroso needle pilot bearing also showed up today as well, a much better alternative to the bronze bushing that came standard.

Since I was a month old

Judging by the date on the package, this spark plug wire guide has been in this GM package since I was less than a month old. It wasn't cheap, but it's perfect and will be one of the countless little things that makes this car great — or at least as great as I can make it.

NOS

There are four brackets that support the spark plug wires and the ignition shielding on this engine. Everything related to this huge collection of parts are reproduced in the aftermarket, but having new old stock parts where it counts is important. These have to be installed as the engine is assembled, so we're getting them now.

One last bracket has been found and ordered to complete the set.

Lost

These two NOS temperature sending units took a month to get here from California, but they finally arrived.

NCRS

Say what you will about the National Corvette Restorers Society and the insufferable minutiae that they pedal in, their judging manuals include information that is not contained anywhere else. Not even the factory assembly manual has information about assemblies like the engine, transmission or radio that arrived at the assembly plant ready to put on to the car.

Case in point is the ignition coil. The assembly manual is not at all helpful in figuring out what ignition coil came on this car originally, but the NCRS judging manual goes into all sorts of detail and it solved the riddle. This is a genuine Delco part that is now reproduced under license from GM. It was not cheap, but it's an identical part since it was made using the original molds.

Inside and out

The heat shield on the bottom of the intake manifold was hiding a lot of grime that needed to be cleaned out. Any of this could possibly have ruined a freshly rebuilt engine.

The heat shield was riveted on, so those rivets had to be ground off.

Once the heat shield was separated from the manifold, both were run through the media-blast cabinet.

The results look so much better.

Rather than drilling out the rivets and taking the risk of having the new rivets not hold well, the heat shield was welded to the remains of the old rivets, making this a simpler and more secure repair.

Everything was pickled to prevent surface rust and this will be set aside for reassembly after the engine is put back together.