Glad to say I can finally update some real progress. I got my welding buddy to give me some time. A month ago he finished welding these brackets which I then primed:
Then I fixtured up the pan with a ratchet strap:
And I cut cardboard templates for the motor mounts:
Then I ordered some square tubing and cut the pieces myself, so all he had to do is weld.
So today he carved out some time and welded the parts all together:
And the finished product, everything lines up as it should:
I have the clearance I wanted for the control arm:
A little more than I planned under the pan:
But the lower part of the pan is flush and parallel to the crossmember which is probably most important. I don't want this hanging down.
And back home ready to go in the car. I bought extra large washers and gave myself 1/2" of clearance in the mounts, so I can move the engine forward and backward as needed, to position it where I want. Also the fat washers allow me to adjust up and down or left and right by simply enlarging the holes in the brackets. So I should be able to fine tune the engine position perfectly:
That was the most frustrating part of the last 6 months, having the crossmember out of the car. This meant the car was immobile on jack stands, in the spot of my garage where I do all my work. So I had a couple other big jobs on my other cars that I had to do on the crowded side, which was not fun. Now that these mounts are done the crossmember does not have to come back out of the car ever again. I will though, to get it powder coated after all the other work is done.
In addition to finishing that, I got a holiday bonus at my new job which means car parts!
Radiator and fan kit! Shamelessly stolen from AndrewNance's project.
This is a 13 x 18 core but it's 2 inches thick. It claims to be able to handle the cooling needs of up to 400 hp motors but we'll see about that. The fan is made for this radiator by flex-a-lite, and at 2.5" is the thinnest fan setup I could find. I like having the two fans, I can use the stock Volvo high/low fan logic to run one or both depending on how hot things are.
But the point of buying it is that it fits with very little modification to the car. I just have to widen the core supports.
So I did! This is the first irreversible damage to the car, no going back now! Heck, even if I did go back to the original motor this radiator is a far superior setup to the original. Also of course the damage isn't really irreversible, it would just require a couple repair panels from a junkyard car.
So while I had the sawzall out I decided to cut out the transmission tunnel:
I also bought an intercooler core but it hasn't arrived yet so no pictures. With the motor mounts done the next step is to try and fit the transmission into the car, and cut away the floorboards and firewall a half inch at a time until it clears. Then I'll know if I need any pedal modifications or anything like that. Between getting these parts done and having a job, I have much more motivation to work on this car again so I should have at least one more update before Christmas. My new goal is to have the car running by the annual import drag races which usually happen the first weekend in June.