The Beginning of another adventure...

Next up was to drain the coolant, remove the coolant hoses, remove the plastic fan shroud and remove the radiator. Fairly simple process and opens up the front of the engine for more work- that Italian Snowball again.

Car on wooden ramps, and coolant draining.

Removal process.  The large black plastic thing is the radiator shroud with the white fan inside it.

Rad, fan, shroud and hoses removed.  Now that is some working room!

Cooling fan removed.  Not going back in since I am installing an electric fan on the front of the radiator.

Radiator out, started cleaning, painting, etc.  This is the bottom, with the brass drain plug shown.

Next up I removed the exhaust manifold.  It's the cumbersome manifold used with the air injection system for US emission standards, so I want to get rid of it for the European 2-piece manifolds that are smaller, flow better, etc.  This change requires I get a new exhaust system as well...snowball.

Everything came apart fairly well without a single broken stud, bolt, etc.  Tight quarters for a wrench to get the last rear-most manifold nut off- that one took easily more time than the other seven.

Half of the exhaust system out.

Exhaust side of engine block. The brass bolt head on the side of the block is another coolant drain. The massive black thing in the lower center is the left side engine mount that will be replaced later with new.  With easy access to it like this, there is no way I'm not replacing it!

I also pulled the alternator shown above on the left so I could clean it, inspect the windings and brushes, etc.

Alternator ready to go back it someday.

The following weekend my brother was in town, so we were able to put a couple hours in.  He removed some crappy driving lights under the front bumper, and started marking up some of the odd wiring somebody had installed in the past.

I removed the cam cover, replaced the last of the fuel lines in the engine bay, set the engine to TDC cylinder #1 and removed the distributor.  The distributor is an aftermarket option offered decades ago to convert the stock double points ignition with an electronic version.  It's pretty cool for the time, so I'm hoping to keep it by replacing what I can: module, pick-up and wire, internal magnet, plug wires, cap, rotor, etc.  We shall see.

Cam cover off.

Goofy wiring.  Area needs a good clean and a little surface rust taken care of.

Distributor ready to come out.  At TDC and rotor pointed at #1 if the cap were on. Perfect.

I also installed the new rebuilt thermostatic actuator. It's the brass colored wire thing in the middle of the photo.

The TA runs from the cylinder head at the top of the photo down to the SPICA mechanical fuel pump ( the pump has the four large fuel pipes coming out of it on the right side of the photo)

Drew cam over the following weekend, so I had him start on removing the front and rear bumpers.  I wanted to see behind them and be able to get to the front of the engine for later work, and I also wanted to collapse the bumper shocks a little so I can tuck those big rubber bumpers into the body a little bit.  Fairly simple stuff, but those bumpers are incredibly heavy! It took both of us to carefully pull them off the car.  Once the shocks were removed from the bumpers, I could put them in a vice and drill them out.  Inside them was a weird rubbery parmesean cheese looking stuff- but the shocks did get much shorter- like 40mm shorter.

bumper shock installed to body

front bumper gone- easy access to the front crank bolt.  Need to replace the main oil seal behind it soon.

bumper shock removed

the stuff that came gushing out once I drilled a large hole in the bottom of the shock

prior to compression of shock

after compression of shock- that should help!

I also removed the exhaust bracket that attaches the exhaust to the transmission.  It was caked in oil (maybe that speedometer cable attachment is causing all of that oil?) and the rubber mounts could use replacing.  Pulled off the car, cleaned it, pressed out the old bushings and pressed in the new.  No problem.

Hard to even tell what it is here, but this is looking at the bottom of the transmission.

removed and cleaned.  It is a two piece bracket that gives some flexibility to the exhaust system.

pressing in the new bushings (2) with the ol' 12 ton press.  The old bushings are there as well. Completely saturated with oil and way too soft.

ready for install!

Next up I rebuilt the distributor.  Replaced the ignition module, pickup, wires, etc. I didn't take to many photos unfortunately.

MarelliPlex Distributor on aluminum heat-sink

New ignition module

Advance weights removed and cleaned- seem to wok fine now but were sticky before.

Frayed pick-up wires on the old.  Not sure how it ran this way, but it did! These wires are inside the distributor under the advance mechanism.

Lastly, I cleaned up the cam cover and gave it a quick polish.  I also removed the two broken plastic clamps bases that are there to hold the warm-air hose that runs from the exhaust manifold to the air box. I no longer have the exhaust manifold that will work with this warm-air system, nor does I have the vacuum  operated switch that moves the air flap inside the air intake function- it was part of the duel-points ignition system....somehow.  I still don't understand how it worked, but my car doesn't even have the parts for it anyway- so by-by!

Prior to polish.  You can also see the yellowish plastic pieces I drilled out.

Post polish.  I didn't want to go crazy with the polish- just give it a little shine.  Highly polished cam covers look out of place usually, and are difficult to keep looking good anyway. I have since tapped those 4 small holes left by the plastic clip bases and installed 4 small allen head screws to fill them in.  I sealed those 4 screws with sealant to minimize oil leaks whenever possible.

That's all for now.  Next up: engine mounts, probably some electrical work, maybe repainting the wheels, etc.