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, yeah you got me on that assembly lube. It does look rather murderous! Unfortunately the crank is coming back out tonight. I want to recheck the bearings and im not happy with the rear main side seals that came in the ITM gasket set. Got a FelPro rear main set this morning im going to swap out with.

Thanks for the kind words! I had previously soaked this block in a 35 gallon garbage can with Krud Cutter and got it pretty darn clean. Took my ball hone to the cylinders to clean them up and gave it a quick coat of paint. Today I got the crank installed with new standard sized bearings. This week will be final clean up of the pistons and putting them in to complete the short block. Fun times!

You can see the rest of the story here: http://www.classiczcars.com/forums/open-zcar-discussion/49530-getting-close-my-71-a.html

Some of you may have seem my thread over in Body and Paint on rebuilding my 71' that's been sitting in my garage for almost 6 years. You guys can see the resurrection of the previously doomed over here: http://www.classiczcars.com/forums/body-paint-s30/49186-rebuilding-my-71-a.html She had been in a bad accident and was very poorly repaired, now sporting a new front end from a younger girl but it suites her well I'd like to start a new thread documenting getting her back on the road. so far I've gotten the brakes rebuilt, gas tank cleaned out and reinstalled to include removing the evap system by capping the extra vent lines on the tank. Refurbed the new to me differential and replaced a broken axel. Incidentally the original reason the car was parked back in 2000. When the axle broke it took out the parking brake cable and damaged the right rear frame and brake line. All that has been rectified and the car is awaiting a new heart. So today I spent the day cleaning the old block from my 70' race car to do a quick re-ring and drop in my 71'. And here is where its going to live: Stay tuned for upcoming updates and hopefully the first fire and drive shortly!

Ok, I think I'll be closing this thread down after this as its too far from body and paint now. So with that I wanted to add a couple old pics of the 71' from shortly after I first got it and pulled the engine. Needless to say I was pretty heart broken when I saw just how stuffed the frame was :-( It was pretty sad for sure, as you can see below. Shortly after puling the engine, what I started with 6 years ago: Contrasted with what she looks like now Notice the frame isn't quite straight here.... Not like the drivers side.... You can see the rusty battery tray area and the kink in the frame just behind the cross member, if you look closely at the second pic you'll notice the TC rod nut is only tightened down about 1/2" to try to compensate for the wheel being almost and inch too far back. Must of had a wicked clunk under braking and really sloppy steering. Evidently they drove the car like this for a long time before breaking an axle in 2000 and parking it outside in that oh so healthy for cars Oakland, CA by the bay sea salt air! And the core support hood hinge area resembled straightened out crumpled paper... I don't have a picture of it but the car looked like it had had a stroke, right headlight droopy, bumper sloping to the right, odd angle on the hood and right front tire. Someone took a BFH to the hood latch support and displaced it 3/4" to the right so the hood would latch as it didn't sit straight on the car anymore. Poor thing..... Well the hood latch is straight now and I expect the hood to close just fine. There will no longer be any droopy eyes for this girl. Things are looking up for sure! Stay tuned for my new thread as I rebuild the engine and get her on the road, then I can start a going through the car and fixing all the little things. Thanks for all the support and kind words, as always the guys and gals on Classic Z are the best!

Thanks Robert! Its been a lot of work and I'm only putting it back together, not even a restoration.

Finally got everything back together on my 71' sans engine and front sheet metal. Spent yesterday refurbing the replacement rear diff as it was waaaaaay nasty and when I opened it up looked as if the fluid hadn't been changed in 30 years. Got it cleaned up, put back together and installed, as well as finished the parking brake cables and fuel tank connections. Now all I need is an engine! On a side note, has anyone ever noticed dissimilar metal corrosion between the diff side bearing plate shims and the aluminum plates? This diff had a good bit of corrosion on the plates and the shims were pretty bad. Had to clean them up with steel wool before putting everything back together. That and the side bearing plates had what at first appeared to be some kind of road grime on them but it was actually corrosion. Nothing a bit of wire wheel action didn't make short work of though. I ended up putting a very light coating of antiseize compound on the plates and shims before putting it back together to hopefully thwart any further corrosion problems. Here are a couple pics: