Is (engine) size important?

So here it is in all its glory, the mighty FE390 (or 6.4 litres to my army of British acolytes). Now I was chatting to Gene with regard to my earlier plans of painting the block blue and he concurred that blue was a perfectly acceptable color and indeed Ford did paint their blocks blue, on the 351 engines. What a horrid thought that people might look under the hood and assume that I had a tiny engine. So black it is, I could not bear the shame of being mistaken for a Cleveland driver.

That nasty rusty mess above the crankshaft pulley is the water pump which I pulled off last night. I was going to service it until I found out that the overhaul kit was going to be $60. So it seemed a whole lot more practical to just buy a rebuilt pump in, wait for it....... chrome. Doesn't that make your girly bits throb in anticipation?

I think that might do it for the chrome, well except for the 5 inch T bolts that I bought to hold the valve covers down, oh and the chrome vent for the crankcase ventilation.

I have to confess to a slight feeling of melancholy at the moment. Everything that I do makes the car look worse. As you can see below the engine bay looks like crap and indeed the car is just a mess. Still everyone tells me that this is the worst part of the project and things will not get to feel better until I start to spray primer.

I am not too sure how much progress will be made this weekend as the forecast is for highs in the 30's. Now I can work in the cold but I don't think that the filler will and I know that Gene won't. At the very least I shall get myself a ton of oven cleaner and clean the engine. It will doubtless be too cold to spray the block so I might just take the bell housing off. Then the clutch can come out and a replacement fitted. I suppose that I should take the flywheel off and check it for any warping, however the clutch takes up fine at the moment (or it did before I took the engine out and deprived myself of the odd illegal burn up the lane.

I will get the exhaust manifold checked for level so maybe before I do I will sandblast them off and see if I can paint them in silver. Black block, silver manifolds and a red pan, that sounds good to me.

Finally look at the poor old Galaxie, nasty filler everywhere (thank you so much Gene) and without the weight of the engine she looks like one of the hip hop things you see in LA.

When, oh when are things going to start to look better?