Use very fine cutting discs. They are about 1mm to 2mm thick, they cost a little bit more but they cut very very quick and very clean. Be carefull with them but, dont bend/twist the grinder when cutting cause they are so thin that they will just break. Should be able to pick them up at most quality hardware stores

judging by those pics - unbolt your water pump and remove the shroud and the mighty 351 clevo should fit


to get better access to remove the shroud remove your grille and front bumper

2x10 mm bolts on the inside of the guards and 4x15 mm bumper bolts


and after you have the engine where you need it bolt on the water pump

as far as I know 120Y radiator support panels are hard to find

well NOS ones anyway!

one more thing - remove the grille before it gets broken

another thing if you are pushed for room and have a few spair hundred bucks, whack in a remote electric water pump and controller from Davis Craig, there are other brands out there aswell

Yeah Im acutally tossing up weather to cut the panel now Mawler1. I think that getting and crane bias in there I should be able to tilt it sufficiently to get it in, I think that it'll be close but I would be stoaked if I could get it in and not have to cut anything!

might just oder one from vpw
vpw engine tilt doovy

Spent most of the day out shoping for tiles for the new kitchen, but managed to get out there for a couple o mins and get some stuff done.

Mawler1, just for you



I relocated the washer bottle to inside the guard. I'll wire it up some other day.



In the end the battery will live in the boot, so in anticipation of that how do you remove this bad boy? Its not bolted in like most of the cars I've had to do this to.

Today I checked out another wreckers and picked up a manual rack from a Gemini that looked like a close match, a rough measure showed it'll probably come up about 5-8 cm too long, what are the options here? can I just sorten the arms? My first doing a steering conversion so any advice would be great.

Dat383, this weekend I followed your lead and swapped the front struts over to get the steering arms facing forward. Not a job I want to do again by myself, a helper monkey is called for next time.

I picked up a gemini rack and was looking at the alternatives for shortening, from your response It sounds like you shortened the rack, I was looking at putting a longer thread on the tie rods and cutting off the excess, reckon theres a negative to my approach, just seemed easier.

The splines are different from the 120 box to the Gemini rack so I'll have to so something about that but its looking better now, just have to see if the high volume sump will have to go to get it all to fit.

I had a go at removing the battery tray and I tells ya I had to mutilate that thing to get it out, the combination of a small area and a large grinder didnt play nice. So I got a smaller grinder and still couldn't get it out neatly. I wont post any pics of that cause its seriously nasty!

I knocked up a quick 3d model of the bay and the engine, the size of the engine is a little off (you can see how easy it makes it look, LIAR!).

I dont claim to be any good at this stuff infact this is my first attempt at 3d models like this, but it was fun so I though I'd share.

http://users.bigpond.net.au/mikgan/datto/engine.wmv

For the rack & pinion, re-threading and cutting off the excess sounds like the cleanest way. But the ones I've seen, they use a hacksaw, cut out a section and weld them back together. That works fine, only word of warning if you are like me (not an expert welder) take it to one as this is a safety issue.

I have been really lasy with this lately, time and money, 2 things I don't have at the moment having just installed a new kitchen into our place. Anyway some cutting and pushing and the 351 has a new home










Next is getting the steering sorted out and running new fuel components.