Engine Re-assembly

This past weekend I spent most of my time working on my engine. The first thing I did was to sand blast the fuel rail to remove rust and prep it for painting (see above). After it was sandblasted, the surface was clean and smooth and a couple coats of Rustoleum brand black paint made it look really nice.

Then I re-assembled the intake manifold. Luckily, I had plenty of pictures on my phone of what it looked like before I took it apart, so I was able to put everything back where it came from without too much trouble.

The throttle body is still dirty, but it won't be too visible underneath the intake duct, plus it would have been a pain to clean up (not worth it, in my opinion).

There was a hairline crack in my exhaust manifold (header) that needed to be welded, and after that was done I was able to bolt the intake and exhaust manifolds back up to the engine block.

I bought my upper & lower radiator hoses and my heater hoses at AutoZone and attached those to the engine. The engine is about done and ready to go in, but I won't be putting it back in until my transmission is ready (I'm still missing a few parts).

I am going to drop in the engine, transmission, and transfer case all as one unit. But before I can do that, I still need to repaint the firewall and then reinstall the wiring harness (which is going to be a lot of work). Stay tuned!