My '85 MGM, "Maisa"

[gadget73]

if you could find a set of the 80s plastic sealed beams and carefully extract the halogen bulb from the back that might be the thing to use. Fit in an LED 194 bulb or similar.

[Mainemantom]

Do you see bondo where the hood ornament went ? Most police/taxi models did not have the ornament. My 84 CV police car didn't.

[Arquemann]

Do you see bondo where the hood ornament went ? Most police/taxi models did not have the ornament. My 84 CV police car didn't.

Police model boxes are super rare in Finland, also wagons outnumber sedans by probably 20 to 1 or more. The hole is shut with bondo or some other filler.

I literally do not have space indoors for the header panel, so it'll sit out somewhere until my 302 rebuild is buttoned up mostly. I'll dismantle the header panel, clean all the bits, probably paint it flat black and slap together and figure out how it'll stay upright on a shelf. I like the idea of functioning lights on it, but I'm not the one to festoon things with nonsense. I'd probably never bother turning it on.
Orange:

[87gtVIC]

Great deal with all the pieces included and no labor to remove it. Couldnt go wrong.

The orange is kinda cool, probably because I have sever seen orange on a box vic before.

[Arquemann]

Great deal with all the pieces included and no labor to remove it. Couldnt go wrong.

The orange is kinda cool, probably because I have sever seen orange on a box vic before.

Now you have:

[87gtVIC]

Oh yeah...and a wagon to boot. I would rock that.

[Arquemann]

Engine is completely painted, took like 48hrs to look visibly dry as its been around 10°C and below in the garage. Installed a new balancer and water pump today. I installed the water pump almost dry, rtv only around the water passages on the timing cover. The backing plate that came with the Gates police-spec pump is a proper plate, its like triple the thickness of the old sheetmetal backing plate. New pump and nice flat surfaces, hopefully no leaks.
Also spent over half an hour scraping crusty oil crap off the insides off the valve covers so it won't fall in the engine. Originally I intended to repaint the valve covers, but I don't think I will afterall. They're still dented and scratched, but I couldn't find the same shade of gold paint, they'd need the paint stripped for a repaint and they will get scratched and dented anyways upon install and fiddling with the engine anyways. I'm not bodyworking my valve covers! Finish is fine enough and I won't be so worried about them. And the camera still makes it look way more orange than in person.

My fancy black hardware kit is from a general parts store in the form of a tiny bottle of black touch-up paint.

Ta-dah:

[jaywish]

Always nice to see them all gussied up.

[sly]

Nice. May need a space heater under it to help the paint cure.

[DerekTheGreat]

The header panel + bumper deal mounted to the wall is a great idea. One I've wanted to do for years. I'd leave all the original lights, just maybe run them with 6V to knock the brightness down and boost bulb life. Engine looks great. I wouldn't repaint the rocker covers either.

[Arquemann]

And onto incredibly minor things that I dwell upon way too much:
I want to relocate the HEI module and it's heatsink so it doesn't stick out too much, aswell as ditch the ugly CFI coil bracket and while at it, probably replace the coil with a classic barrel style coil. The stock coil had a broken connector so I had to replace it with spade connectors. 3 wires crammed into a single spade connector and it sticking straight up doesn't look particularly nice. Finding a barrel coil with the male plug wire connector might be hard, atleast within reasonable budget. MSD's Blaster 3 is a hundo...

Thinking about installing the HEI module on the backside of the upper alternator bracket, it'd would be very out of sight when the engine is in the car and still be cooled properly and be very accessible if need be. If I install it horizontally, it looks smarter imo and doesn't stick out as much, but wires on one side might be a bit too close to the alternator.
If I put it at an angle it looks dumb somehow, but the wiring would be better. I think I'll paint the heatsink black so it'll blend in better.
Shame the bracket itself isn't flat enough to mount it straight on, it would've work well as a heatsink.

Yes, I have too much time with my thoughts, being unemployed is mentally unhealthy.

[friskyfrankie]

There is NOTHING wrong with being detailed oriented/particular! Don't make yourself crazy but detailed enough to be satisfied. Just set the "satisfaction bar" at a reasonable height!

[87gtVIC]

Looking good. I am all about the details sometimes. Its fun to make things the way you want them.

[Arquemann]

Sometimes I think to myself, am I completely nuts?
I was thinking about buying a new set of valve cover bolts for about 8 euros or slowly cleaning, wire brushing, prepping and painting all the old crusty ones, one by one.

If I bought new ones I could get pretty button head ones with allen heads to a socket wouldn't scrape the valve covers, or maybe I could get studs for laughably easy installation and fancy acorn nuts on top.
But the old ones have those little studs and captive washers and overall an original look. Those studs are really handy since the allow attaching the plug wire separators to keep the wires nicely in order and away from themselves and hot headers. Man I love having the plug wires nicely and evenly held in place and draped equidistant from each other. But I only have one or two intact of those factory stud mounted plug wire separators. Zip ties are awful as they are very hard to make look uniform and its hard to move them along the plug wire. Maybe I could use the universal comb type ones and use zip ties to mount them to the studs...

By the time the time I was starting to lean towards refurbing the old bolts and studs for the fourth (I think) time, I had already finished cleaning and painting all the old ones. Looks like CJ pony parts sells OE repops of the plug wire brackets for an absurd $35 per set.

Also went dumpster diving because I forgot the water pump pulley bolts in the old pump hub and have been thinking about how to go about making the exhaust manifolds look nice or not to do anything to them in fear of having very short-lived results and eventually having them look worse than if I hadn't done anything at all. Maybe zinc paint / cold galvanizing...


These aren't purple to the naked eye, the metallic black does weird things to my phone camera.

[Grand1]

Good on ya for the White glove treatment....the bottom line, no one....not even the most reputable shop will give it the same detail you will. I shudder to think all those times before I picked up a wrench and had shops do it.

Time consuming, check. Make you doubt other things when working on something else, check. The feeling that it was done by you....you did this.....that is where its at.