busy busy busy

yup still just busy, the mustang is on the back-burner for a bit till I get a few more important life things squared away.

In other life related news, a few months back my truck got crashed into...Bent the frame 3 inches and sprung the rear leaf spring.

So i got A new(to me at least) F-350 to drive( my Daily driver was the truck for the winter, my subaru threw the front pulley.) It had a poorly wire holley fuel injection set-up on it. We decided to get back to the basics and stuck the 650 holley carb off the bronco(another project my father and I are hung up on and she ran great after that.)

soooo......

Finally tooksome pictures of a few things

the valve covers oil pan and intake, along with part of the cylinder head are painted, leaving the headers and the block at the only engine parts not painted(yet)

The bearing alignment turned out to be a connecting rod problem, I had one rebuilt and now Im going together once again. As it stands right now I have 8 pistons in the bores fully dressed, still bare cylinder heads, painted valve covers, oil pan and intake manifold. The drivers side suspension nearly rebuilt(all of the wear parts changed).

On another note I've Invested in a bowling and grippo megasquirt II standalone ECU(V3.57) and the realated wiring componets. If all goes well with the intial start-up and break in on my engine I'll move on to adding wasted spark ignition (EDIS-8) and Throttle body injection(1983 continetial. this should help to bump up the fuel econemy to a fairly decent level(assuming I possese the skills to make the engine run with the fuel injection system). Only time will tell im afraid.

Unforunatly I have yet to take the time to provide the pictures that I so often promise. I apologize as I am forgetful.

On yet another note my father and I have started a side project swapping a 460 into a 1979 ford bronco. Its all but finished if the radiator we purchased hadnt fill our transmission full of coolant. we're planning on drying it out the best we can and running it. but I doubt that the outcome will be in our favor.

As for the old engine(351c) we're looking at swapping heads to a slightly different engine and having a fair bit of fun frankensteining yet another vehicle.

Gads, More problems as it were

Hopfully this is the last of them otherwise I'll have to tear my hair out.

Im still having trouble with the bearing alignment on a couple of rods, I've Got them all 100% on the right way but I made the mistake of re-using a bearing with a bent alignment tab.

The good news is I got hired on at a local Shop doing tires and a bit of mechanicing. They do alot of business with the county and many state agencies so it'll take a while to gain there full trust and be able to do mainly mechanicing. Hopefully I can get a chance to show them my true skills. If not I'll continue to do tires and clean-up and pray that I get a fair raise at some point (7.00 bucks an hour is boardering on slave labor in my opinion....But it buys parts and pays bills).

A little off topic but

The school I go to(College of Eastern Utah) was ranked in the top 20 schools in the nation in a recent issue of tomorrows technician. Its rather exciting not only because of the fact that its rank that high nationally but also the fact that we are Very small in compairison to some schools.

last we left

I was getting ready to assemble the engine....I think....

the good news is I got all the pistons put back on rods and Im ready to go back together.

The bad news is Im out of money, Budget cuts at the college took the last of my work-study with Most of the budget for the automotive program. We have to put in a request for one paper clip....its that bad....

Done with classes till January

Yup, Finished up finals last week and scored Very well on the NATEF tests for both engines and manual transmissions. 30 out of 40 on transmissions and 33 out of 40 on engines.
In Addition to that I Did some work for a guy on his toyota who was very very satisfied with how well it ran afterwards, At this rate I may be stuck here merely by reputation rather then detained by the fact I havent been sucessful in finding a mechanicing job as of yet. I could always go back to plumbing for my uncle, Doesnt make use of my degree of course but is a job I do fairly well.
But yes back to the mustang, I havent gotten the new set of pistons on the connecting rods, I havent even posted a photograph of on here. But it'll have to wait until I get there. I Just havent had the desire to get out of bed now that its starting to get cold outside. Those blankets sure do grab hard when is gets well into the 40's(thats just a guess of course but likely an accurate one). Stay tuned all, somthings gonna happens sometime, eventually.......