I've wasted time, I've wasted breath, I think I've thought myself to death

Half of the expense (and fun) of doing a car project like mine is the tool buying process. Since I've started, I've invested a few thousand into my tool collection. I've come to the realization that tools are to gearheads as shoes are to many women. Most of the time you don't NEED that tool, but man, think of how nice it would be to have it and how many things you could do with it! But nobody has unlimited money, so we have to be judicious about how we buy our tools. A woman wouldn't go out and buy a pair of Christian Loboutin heels and wear them with her pajama pants because she blew all her money on the heels. By the same token, I'm not going to buy a wrench set from Snap-On and then have to use a rock for a hammer. So sometimes that means buying tools from the cheapest possible source, Harbor Freight tools. Those of you who have shopped there (and no true gearhead hasn't) know it well. It's a veritable temple of low cost  and mostly useless contraptions smelling of anti-corrosive shipping grease.

I've been needing an engine crane for some time now. When I was in college, I always borrowed my coworker Rob's engine crane. I'm pretty sure I used it more often than Rob did. Thanks Rob! In fact I used it so much I lost the handle to the hydraulic ram...  Sorry Rob. So Saturday morning, Vaughn and I headed to Hazard Fraught Harbor Freight to get an engine crane of my very own. We went in, and while I was waiting for them to bring my boxes up to the front Vaughn swore at me for bringing him into the store where he was powerless against buying useless crap at a discount price.

So the beginning of my morning felt more like Ikea than Gas Monkey Garage. But once I got the crane together, things started to move along.

The Ford 2.3 turbo uses a 9" clutch and flywheel, which is perfectly adequate in stock form and even above stock power levels with aftermarket clutch kits. But at a certain point, those aftermarket clutches have such high diaphragm pressure that depressing the clutch feels like trying to stand up with Oprah (at the crest of her body weight cosine wave) standing on your shoulders. I currently have a clutch setup in the Ranger capable of holding 400+ lb-ft, but it's so stiff that a few years ago I had an injured foot that wouldn't heal until I stopped using that clutch. In an attempt to make Grace a little more driveable than the Ranger, I'm going with a 10.5" flywheel and clutch from the 5.0 mustang. This requires that I use a 5.0 bellhousing and an adapter. Getting a bellhousing for a good price required going to a part of Inglewood where skinny white nerds like me get their lunch money taken, but the guy I bought it from was really nice. One thing I've learned about buying and selling car parts on craigslist is that if you don't spend at least 10 minutes talking about your project with the other party, you've broken the code.

Canfield Industries adapter plate for 2.3 to 5.0 transmission

With the proper bellhousing between the engine and transmission, I lifted the assembly into place and centered the engine in the engine bay. Getting it to fit required a bit more cutting on the floor and firewall, but once I was satisfied with it's placement I broke out the scissors and cardboard to make templates of the steel pieces that would make the motor mounts.

Using the tried and true angle grinder method to make the mounts

First piece tacked in

Cardboard templates are essential to a hack job hotrodder like me

Passenger's side mount finished

Start of driver's side mount

Around 6:30 PM I was making really good progress and didn't wan to stop, but I'd planned to meet up at 7:00 with my good friend Tim who has just moved to L.A. for an internship. Fate was on Tim's side saturday night because just as I got the main piece of the driver's side mount tacked in, disaster struck.

I ran out of wire. I took it as a sign that I was to quit. While I was talking with Tim about the good old days. We became friends in college and shared a garage that he was renting from some girls around the corner. I dubbed it Tim's Temple of Testosterone. We reminisced about those days and I remembered just how much I missed having a garage buddy. We would hang out there to work on cars and sometimes just to talk about cars or even just life in general. Friends who were only mildly into cars (or not into them at all) would come by just to hang out. I got looking at some old pictures and it made me pretty nostalgic tonight. Chances are you don't know these people, but if you are a gearhead you know these people.

Tim doing a Tim thing in a Tim way. Tim was the organized one, always had a place for everything. I was the tornado who would get things done, but destroy the place in the process. I also spent 60% of my time looking for that tool I just had in my hand!

The Super Beetle and the Ranger. And a double gulp left by Schreiber.

Schreiber doing the Schreiber thing in a Schreiber way.

Mostly just burning myself.

I'll just point out the obvious. Yes. At one point in life I had hair. Also, yes, women were allowed in the Temple of Testosterone. They were welcome even. To my knowledge it happened four times.

Impressing approximately no-one.

Forty Thousand Feet, Keep Flyin'

Hello again dear reader. I hate to disappoint, but there has been very little progress on the Falcon project in the past months.  Life has been pretty eventful, so I'll do my best to fill you in especially on the car related news.

Like Plano Texas...

Probably the biggest news is that my employer, Toyota, has decided to move the national headquarters from Torrance, California to Plano, Texas. I have been asked by a lot of friends and family if that means I'm moving to Texas. I will not be going to Texas. My job however, may be moving to Michigan. The fun part is that I will not even know if my job is moving for another 8-12 months. Personally I'm not terribly bothered either way but most of my coworkers have families and houses here in California and are emotionally attached to the location. For most of them, it's home. Having to choose between a job you love and a home you love is a decision I know all too well. So where will I be in a year and a half? We'll have to wait and see.

Recently I spent two weeks on the other crust of our Great American Sammich. The first week was spent in Connecticut performing a fuel economy test. The most interesting part of that week was probably the abandoned insane asylum. Not car related, but creepier than finding Pee Wee Herman hiding behind your shower curtain/

"It's lonely here"

If one level of fun is not enough, we've got two more!!

It's a "fixer upper"

Labratory

The next week I was in NYC for the New York International Auto Show. As always, all the manufacturers put on a big show and bragged about how they were the leader in sales of three wheeled hybrid crossovers marketed to women with degrees in expressive dance and an income of greater than $37,923!!!  Apparently the NYC suit wearers can be impressed by such statistics, and subsequently, stock prices rise. Or not. In any case, the free food at this show wasn't as good as Detroit, so I was pretty bummed by that. Oh yeah, there were cars there too. We like those, so I'll show you some.

I think I've posted the FT-1 before, but it really caught my eye this time. It's far better in person than in pictures.

The Alfa Romeo 4C is a pure sports car.

Even the pedals have a far different feel than your everyday production car.
Machined out of billet aluminum, they have a genuine "race" feel.

50th anniversary Mustang in Wimbledon White

Jaguar F-type Coupe won the prestigious Jesse's Favorite Car award.
It has a fantastic bootay.

As is often the case, famous people attend auto shows. Many of them are famous in the automotive world, and some are famous to the general public. This time I met Christian von Koenigsegg, the founder and owner of Koenigsegg automotive. Christian was a very cool guy who was willing to geek out with  me about camless engines for about 5 minutes. I also spotted a famous figure in US history whose face can be found on large denomination currency.

With Christian von Koenigsegg

This guy took time out of his normal routine of
flying kites in thunderstorms to see the auto show.

After returning from the auto show, I went to Utah for my brother's wedding. I don't have anything car related from that, but I do have a cool video. My sister-in-law said she wanted to toss her bouquet in a more impressive manner than is normally done, so dutifully I offered my services.

Finally, I something that relates to Grace. I decided it had been way too long since I had started up the old green Ranger and warmed up the engine. I stuck my GoPro on the side to record the exhaust sound for posterity, because things will change drastically for the old Ranger once I take the engine out to give to Grace. It's got a pretty deep tone for a 4 popper. Have a listen, you may need to turn it up.

I figure when I make it to the heavenly gates they'll be workin' on my car and playin' 78s

I should have written this a week ago, but last Sunday I left for Japan. Lest this blog turn into a travel blog, I'll not go into great detail about that. It was fascinating to be sure, but I'll be brief and get it out of the way. Hang with me though, I worked on Grace, I promise.

Car culture is alive and well in Japan. To be honest, I saw a lot more of it than I expected.

Toyota AE86 Trueno

In Japan, the Mini is called the Average.

I saw a lot more 'murrica than I expected.

E30 Wagon

Diesel Landcruiser

Some classic Isuzu I'd never seen.

More 'murrica.

Suziki Jimny. I need one. Badly.

Kei truck rolling on Volks. I also need this. Badly. With a Hayabusa swap,

3rd gen legacy with STi badges

Wanna be my louver?

You can buy this exact pink Toyota Crown in Japan.

Japan's version of the hippy van.

It's just a cute little lift!

Anyway, Japan was fascinating. And I ate raw horse, whale, and chicken. Take that hippies! (for the record, I love nature and do believe in conservation, I just don't like environmentalists who hate humans and liberty)

So about a two and a half weeks ago, I finally got the front suspension all painted and put back together so that Grace was back on her feet.

I figured it was about time to get started on the motor mounts. I have a spare block I bought from Earl. Earl has an ugly orange Pinto Wagon with a 2.3 turbo in it. It's quite the sleeper. I got the extra engine block because I figured my life would be a whole lot easier with a bare engine block instead of trying to wrestle a complete engine while making motor mounts.

As you can see below, making the motor mounts is not a precision process by any stretch of the imagination, being done with cardboard templates, my handy angle grinder, and drill.

Now I needed to get the engine into the bay. I don't have an engine hoist yet, so just for kicks, I decided to make a little pulley crane in the car port. It's a little hard to see, but it's the green rope and pulley in the picture below. It was a partial success. I could lift the engine block, but barely. It needs more pulleys for a better mechanical advantage.

With that, and a little help from Vaughn...  ok the crane was a massive failure, vaughn and I could have just lifted the stupid thing into the engine bay a lot easier than by using the pulley system.  But we got the engine set in place with a little support from some 2 x 4s.

I has always been suspicious of this car's transmission tunnel because it appears to be tiny. Turns out it is. In order to get the engine positioning I want and to fit a normal transmission under this car, I realized that I'd be playing surgeon on the old girl again. I spent a long time pacing back and forth trying to decide if I really wanted to do this. I know all too well that this is one of those rabbit holes that you climb into head first. This is territory where projects go and all too often die! I've seen it a hundred times. But then I remembered I'd already been to the point of no return with this and plenty of other projects. I finish projects! My projects don't just die! I can do this! (cue Rocky montage of me cutting and welding shirtless, sparks flying, inspirational music playing, muscles glistening)

So yeah, I cut a gaping hole in the floor. She's open on the surgery table. And I hate to disappoint, but that's where she sits. But hey, here's a complete guide to men for all you ladies...

Har-har just kidding, ain't no womenkind readin' this blergh!