Today’s task was a simple one — get enough done on the car to feel comfortable putting the body on, so I could get all the light wiring out of the way.

I had hoped to really finish everything that needed to be done before doing a final installation of the body, but the work yesterday with the headers burned up enough time that there was no way. Its not every day I can get help to do the body, so I did what I could before then.

I started off this morning a bit late, nearly 11:00. It was already uncomfortably warm out, with this late April heat wave we’ve been having. The first thing I needed to do was get the clips onto the bolts on the headers. The Stage 8 bolts have little hex-shaped clips that slide over them, and then have an E-clip that holds them there. The idea is they will keep the bolts from backing out. The header pipes were all too close to the bolts, though, so I had to get some tin snips and “adjust” all of them to fit as best I could. That was a miserable job, and took almost an hour.

The space to the right of the dash on the car is an opening where typically the wire harness would be run if someone was using the stock wiring harness from a donor Mustang in one of these cars. I wanted to use that as a point of entry into the dash space for an air duct for the heater core and fresh air vents. A blower installed in the passenger fender will blow air from one of the ducts in the front of the car, through this opening and over to the heater core. To make room for the 3″ ABS pipe, I had to cut out a chunk of the metal there (and managed to shatter a jigsaw blade in the process…)

I then used anther jig saw blade to cut a 3″ opening in the panel that gets riveted into that space.

Using some bits of aluminum (cut and bent from the flanges I cut off the transmission tunnel cover last week), I mounted the pipe into the panel and sealed it with silicone caulk. This basically routes the air into the dash and makes a sharp 90 degree turn to run behind the dash to the heater core.

I also mounted the blower in the car, but forgot to take any photos.

So after that, I got some help and got the body onto the car. For future reference, and anyone who hasn’t done it yet — if you have high back seats, take them out before you do that. It really makes it very hard to get on otherwise.

There’s not much to say about it, so I’ll just post some photos … I’ll post more updates this week as I get the lighting wiring finished up.