Did you drop the cradle to pull the balancer? If so, I found that 75-80mm bolts give you just the right amount of room in order to leave the frame up and you can sneak the balancer out with a little wiggling.

Progress is looking good... is that sway broken? If so, that'* a standard W body feature in my experience. Out of about 10 cars only one wasn't broken.

I dropped the cradle. But I'll keep that in mind if I ever have to pull the balancer again.

I don't think the sway bar is broken... I just assumed that it wasn't hooked up. There'* probably bushing or something that I'm missing. I'll keep my eyes open next time I'm at the PaP.

If I'm lucky tonight, I'll be able to get the exhaust finished up and the car fired up.

The engine fired tonight!

But it was a disastrous victory, the oil filter adapter is hemorrhaging oil. I also spilled a good bit of tranny fluid when i pulled the dipstick out to change the rear manifold.

So... a good bit of work to go still, but the engine fired and runs really well. So I'm happy!

I've seen the OFA gasket leak before...it'* brutal when it leaks at the high pressure side of things. Luckily it'* a cheap gasket, just a pain to swap out. Take your time on the gasket surfaces and you'll have that fixed up soon.

Any advice on how to do this gasket? The OFA is sitting very close to the trans. I'll take any help/advice you got!

Nvm! I got it!

The extensions that allow a little bit of flex at the end did it!

Glad you got it.

I use a combination of shallow socket and thin headed ratchet, infiniflex ratchet and ratcheting wrench. It is a tight spot that would only be easier if you drained the trans and pulled the axle.

Ok! The oil isn't leaking from the adapter at all! It'* pouring out the top of the oil filter!

What the hell did I do wrong?

OMFG! All that work just to find out that the oil filter doesn't have it'* gasket on it!

FML big time

ALRIGHT!

All done!

I just took it around the block... oh boy does it need struts in the rear. Also, either the gas tank is really full, or the gauge isn't reading right. Lets see... what else... I am finishing up bleeding the coolant system right now. I took a video but it'* not really good because it'* really dark out. I'll try to get something better tomorrow!

WOOT!