Transmission In, Engine Cleaning

So with the new (to me) transmission cleaned, rebuilt, and resealed it was ready to go back in the car. Assuming your car's chassis is completely unmodified you hypothetically want to put the engine and transmission in already joined. However my chassis is modified: the front two chassis bars have been cut out, the top because it came like that and honestly you need to for easy removal of the motor, the bottom one because it had been dented severely when the motor was removed by the previous owner so I'll be welding in a new bar. So with those modifications I can slip my transmission and engine together seperately, the trick is to simply set the trans-axle into where it's going to live, but DON'T bolt it in. That gives it that little bit of wiggle and adjustment so that when the engine is ready to join it adjustments can be made and the bell-housing bolts put back in.

Getting the trans in the car is a tricky job, and it's better if you have two sets of hands because you need to rock the trans-axle to either direction to slip in the axles. Gotta' be extra careful to make sure the spindle caps on the axles don't come off at this step and to re-pack the axle cups with bearing grease, don't want them wearing out.

I had to put back on the C-Clip that connects the clutch release arm and slave cylinder

Sitting pretty with everything connected

However my flywheel, clutch, and engine are not ready to go back in the car so for now just the transmission will be alone in the car. The engine is the only thing on this car I hadn't torn down and either rebuilt or at least cleaned, mostly because it hadn't given me any issue. Supposedly the engine had had the cylinders sleeved by the previous owner and I wanted to cleaned the oil pan anyway since the first time I drained the oil it had water foam and slime in it, so I figured it didn't hurt to clean the pan and look in the cylinders.

I was speechless.

The motor looked goddamn brand new

After everything else on this car I expected a horror-show. 

This engine was professionally cleaned, probably vatted and cleaned.

All I did to the interior was to clean out the oil-pickup and clean some of the dirty oil out of the valleys.

I like the Ford blue so I'm gonna try to clean it up and repaint it

I bought a new oil pump ages ago and never installed it so I figured now was as good a time as any

Oil pickup cleaned and the old gasket scrapped off

While the engine is off I figured I would clean the waterpump since when the motor is in the car it's damn near impossible to get tools down there. Also gonna go ahead and clean up the motor mounts. A motor that looks that good inside deserves to look just as good on the outside!

Water-pump cover, water-pump and motor mounts.

Interior of the pan, cleaned of old oil and anything else

Exterior of the pan, I think we can agree it was a little worse for wear.

Feet cleaned of old paint

Water-pump cover all cleaned ready to be repainted

Here's the outside of the motor before cleaning

It's been sitting on this engine stand too long, dust, grime plus everything from inside the car

Motor is almost as gross as I am

Remember kids, if you're gonna gunk your motor cover the carburetor, distributor and the PCV value so you don't get water and gunk inside the block.

I've got to clean the exterior of the motor and figure out if I want to paint it or just leave the paint as is. I think I'm leaning towards repainting it this Ford blue or a very similar color since it matches the steering rack and overflow tank. We'll see though, it may be more trouble than it's worth, but at the same time I'm never gonna get a better chance... decisions decisions...

Also need to clean my flywheel and clutch assembly so they can be bolted back up as well.