No longer headless

I finished up with scrubbing and painting the oil pan, so I put that on today so I could flip the engine upright again without making a huge mess. I think it looks much better than it did before, don't you? Its oil-containing ability is also much better.


After flipping the engine upright I chased the threads for the headbolts with an old headbolt (re-using these bolts is usually not recommended unless you like changing headgaskets and planing heads on a regular basis) which I cut thin slots into with a Dremel, and after oiling the bolt ran it in to each bolt hole, unscrewed it, cleaned it, repeat until I could thread it in and out all the way with my fingers and the bolt comes out clean. I removed a bit of rust from 4 of the holes, the others came up clean.

This is the last time the pistons will see daylight. I love the reflection on the cylinder walls.

The head went on today as well, I used a Mopar Performance "2006" headgasket and Mopar Performance headbolts.


The manifolds didn't go on today like I hoped because the intake is being more difficult to clean than I thought. Tomorrow I think I'm just going to try a powerwasher on it. I know I could still just slap it on and run it, this isn't a show car, blah blah blah... but I want it to at least be clean and nice looking when I get it all together the first time, so it will be easier to keep clean later.