Some Assembly Required

I hope everyone enjoyed the holidays and happy new year! First, I would like to thank my Aunty Kay for the Autozone giftcard which definitely came in handy as Erik and I needed new gloves, throttle body cleaner, towels, etc.. and also to the rest of my family for money that I used toward getting a 1/2" breaker bar and 3/8" torque wrench (which I really needed for what I was planning to do next).

So the last week I've been preparing to drop the engine and transmission back into the car on Sunday. Although I didn't rebuild the engine as I planned before, it was good to take it out, replace the valve cover and oil pan gaskets, and clean it up (at least to my best ability). It was also good to take a look at the clutch so I didn't mind the whole process of taking everything out just to put back in. It wasn't a waste of time imo.  My brother was nice enough to volunteer his time before he went out for the day.

Rolled the engine on the stand out of the garage to the car.

We put the oil pan back on with new hardware then put the 

engine on a mover's dolly while we get it leveled with the 

transmission to put them together.

Torquing the flywheel bolts down to spec with locktite (blue bottle). 

Note: we used my deep 13mm socket to hold the flywheel in place. 

Clutch and pressure plate were then torqued down to spec as well.

Proper lubricating to make sure everything goes smoothly. 

Bolting the transmission to the engine

Probably would be lectured as to where we decided to

lift the engine and transmission from an expert but we didn't run into

any issues or did it feel sketchy at all although it may have been easier 

in another spot.

 Took a while to wiggle the engine in the proper spot for the 

bolts to slip into the engine mounts. Had to look for the bolts in a 

little bin as the previous owner didn't have installed when I received my car...

Towed all the way from Nevada without the engine OR transmission bolted

in place. I'm glad everything worked out in the end.

And everything is secured in place! I need to buy 

two bolts to secure the transmission crossmember

in place as they were not provided with the car... 

I also decided to clean up a few things I 

had laying around covered in oil/grease/dirt haha.

That's all that basically happened recently. I also bought some other parts but you will have to wait until they come in next week to find out what it is! Stay tuned!