1969 Dart Street/Strip (Re)Build

Worked for a couple hours scrubbing the burnt oil on the headers off with a 0000 steel wool pad and some Mother's polish and everything looks almost like it did before. Almost. The steel wool tends to take the sheen from the glossy polished finish but it still looks fine. So that's all cleaned up.

I did find an alternate way to install the inspection cover and it worked. The oil drips straight down now and falls straight back to the trans pan and X pipe. Not an ideal situation but better than all over the headers.

Now since it's getting so late in the year, I could not decide if I wanted to really pull the motor to fix the leaks or leave it alone. If I pulled the motor, who knows how long I'd have it out or what other issues I'd run in to. Plus there's the trans swap which will take some time. I can't get an engine run stand for another few weeks and I really don't want to take it to a dyno shop (although I wouldn't mind seeing what kind of power it measures compared to what the hp is calculated by my track times). So after a little over a week of dragging my feet trying to make a choice on whether or not to pull the engine at this point, I've finally made a decision. Fall is right around the corner and winter will be shortly behind. I already know how this will go once I start blowing things apart. I'll end up maybe getting the car back together sometime in the winter and I want to drive the car in the fall. So I did a little bit of research and found some oil absorbing fire resistant pads. My idea is to place these pads in between the inspection cover and the oil pan and probably wrap them around the bottom of the pan as well. This should catch any oil that may drip and hopefully the flame resistant material will lessen the chance of a fire. This should allow me to go ahead and drive the car for the rest of the year until I blow it apart in the winter. I'll just need to keep an eye on the oil level. Depending on how it goes, I should be able to FINALLY go back to the track and start playing a little bit. Don't know that I will any time soon due to the freakin heat but for sure in the fall time. Hopefully this band-aid idea will work in the meantime.