Big Doin's.

Well, things have really been happening. I haven't kept up with my blogging, so I'm going to do a little retroactive post...

The Canary Has Landed!

At long last, the engine has arrived. Carley picked it up after work one evening, and brought the crate home, leaving me wondering how I was going to get it out of the truck. My dad had the suggestion of using the lift as an engine hoist, which worked very well. Mike O'Connor appears to have done a nice job. I, of course, wanted the engine to look brand new for my restoration, but as I could tell he was a serious mechanic, I didn't want to insult him by asking him for visual perfection. It did come out very clean and will hopefully look good in the car. He told me he has the cranks for his engines built by a guy in Germany, which accounts for some of the expense of having him do an engine. He also only uses synchro-mesh transmissions, which is nice since Honda had both synchro, and non-syncro trannies. Part of the reason I wanted to buy an engine was so I could save time and money looking for parts like a starter, clutch, carburetor and various gaskets, bearings and seals. Unfortunately, his engines don't come with a carb, but since I have three of them, hopefully I can make something work.



Gettin' This Puppy In.

When my dad retired, I hoped we would be able to spend some more time together. Well, even thought he's at least as busy as he was when he was working, he came to spend the weekend and help give the project a push. I had managed to get the steering rack cleaned up, painted and reinstalled before he got here, if not much else. We got a reasonably early start Saturday morning, and quickly made great progress. The engine needed a little attention to details such as locating the engine mounting bracket and related hardware, and getting them bolted on. After two and a half years the body finally came off the rotisserie when we installed the rear end and set the car on it's first pair of new tires in decades. As I worked on various items, Dad got to rebuilding the brake calipers. These are a strange design with an inner and outer piston in each caliper, which took some figuring to get reassembled. I sand-blasted the caliper brackets, and got them painted. I've been using a high quality paint from Eastwood Co. that leaves a great finish, but takes a long time to dry, so we couldn't get the calipers fully reassembled yet. There are, of course, quite a few small things that need to be done, but I'm very excited to be at this point. This weekend I hope to get the front end parts blasted and painted, and finish the calipers. I also sent the drive shafts to Oregon Axle in Portland today to see if they can refurbish them for me. So hopefully things will continue to come along as nicely as they have this weekend.