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Well the hood is off! Last weekend I opened up my tools, donned my Air Force jumpsuit and got up-close and personal with the yet-to-be-named car. As old as this car is, I thought I was going to have one rough time taking the car apart. Afraid of rusty lock-tight bolts, I bought a couple of cans of WD-40 and brake cleaner. To my thankful surprise, the nuts and bolts weren't to bad. After marking the hinge placement where the hood connects, I used a tiny amount of grit before the bolts chunkingly came loose. All that metal was surprisingly light. The oil drain plug came off like someone had purposely not tightened it knowing I was coming. Almost like your Dad leaving loosening it and pretending he wasn't strong enough, and asks for you to give it a try making you feel like you were Superman (thanks Pops). As black as the oil was, it came out fast and clean. No chunky parts or buildup.

The luck ran out when it came to the battery. The nuts on the terminal connector didn't look corroded at all, but they were a little stripped. I used pretty good force to keep the socket pressed against the edges as best I good, but with all my might, I still started to strip it. I thought maybe I was turning it the wrong way, so I tried to go back and was met with the same resistance. So I went back my original way and it just wouldn't budge. So I grabbed a screw driver and started chipping away at the aluminum connector, to make more room for my socket to fully envelope the nut. Long story short, I'm not afraid to admit that I was going the wrong way (yes I know lefty-loosey, righty-tighty, but somehow I just wasn't seeing it right). I got the battery out and went after the radiator. Again my luck was short as I tried to drain it first. I misplaced the bucket and spilled half of the fluid on the shop floor. After cleaning it up, my luck was restored with the radiator bolts. All four came off nice and easy (as left over coolant would spit out every once in a while when the weight shifted).

With the radiator out, it made my engine compartment look even bigger. Such a joy working on older cars. No more blooding knuckles in cramped spaces trying to loosen things. After cleaning up the left over fluid, i tried to take off anything that would be in the way of taking the engine out. I disconnected the fuel line to the carburetor, the electrical lines to the alternator, and attempted at removing the heating line from the engine to the firewall. It's a molding piece of metal piping that has a rubber hose at each end to connect to the radiator and firewall. I decided it was best to leave it be instead of accidentally bending the metal pipe just to get it out. After wrestling with it for 20 min I gave up.

The last thing I did was remove one of the side chrome molding pieces just to see how hard it was going to be. It actually snapped (in a good way) off the clips pretty easy. The big thing I was told was to be patient. Patient I was and it paid off. The chrome didn't bend, the clips stayed intact, and I was a real happy camper. That was it for the day as I had to actually head into work to do some rush stuff and get ready for our holiday party. There are some new pics up on flickr, but I've reached my limit for month and will have to wait until January to post more.