Prepping the Engine Bay

This afternoon’s goal was to get some primer on the engine cross member, firewall and bits of the frame that I couldn’t reach before because the engine and transmission were in the way.  Things were pretty straightforward with the usual prep of getting rid of any surface rust, wiping everything down and then seam sealing and priming.

One of the things I wanted to finish before starting the priming was to beef up the engine mounts on the cross member.  Currently they are just a tube welded onto one tab of thick steel.  I’m worried about them twisting if the V8 gains some traction and decides to dig in and put a bunch of load on the tabs causing them to twist.

I created two extra tabs for each engine mount out of 1/8″ steel and welded them on to form a box at the back of the engine mount. This should give them a lot more support for any kind of twisting under heavy engine load.  I figure with both of these beefed up and a good solid connection on the transmission mount, the engine should stay firmly in place.

Then it was time to get down and clean-up the surface rust and run some beads of seam sealer around the underside of the transmission tunnel and firewall.  The last task was to mask everything off so that I didn’t get primer overspray on my nice black chassis paint.

I figured I’d let everything dry over night and then get some of the black chassis paint on it first thing in the morning. That should allow me to get the car back down on its tires and possibly do some painting on the inside of the cabin.