You can't polish a turd.

But you can put an engine in one. I have officially moved on to my next project. I have a guy I work with that blew up the motor in his corvette. He truly loves this car and doesn't want to get rid of it so I told him I would help him get an engine for it. Here is a picture of it.

Now you know why I titled this post the way I did. It's a 1975 corvette and has been abused a lot in it's life. I have to admit though that I have a soft spot for these years of vette's (even though they are about the worst years of vette's)  because when I was 10 or 11 my Dad bought one of these at an auction and I helped him rebuild the rear end on it and fix it up. They are fun to drive too. They have a very unique feel to the way they handle and drive and just look at those curves. How can you not like them? Well, lots of people don't like them and I have had many comments on this one as it sat in my driveway waiting for an engine. Anyways, back to the car. My Dad located an engine for this in Logan. The price was right so on Friday I loaded the family in the truck and went to pick it up. The engine is a good one. It's out of a Chevy crew cab truck and actually has more horsepower and torque than the one that blew up in the vette. Here is what it came out of.

Here it is all loaded up and ready to transport back to Salt Lake.

Not much to look at but it will be a good engine for the vette. Now the fun begins with pulling the old engine out. Here is the old on in all it's glory.

 Removing the accessories to get some room to swing it forward.

 I actually took this picture below so I can remember where everything goes back on.

 Dixie and Ellie came out for a visit. These are the 2 car chicks in my life.

I was trying to put off laying on my back and removing all the stuff from underneath the car so I focused on the engine that I will be putting in the car.

 Here Steven is helping me pull it out of the truck.

 Got it on the stand and started removing all the components that were still on it.

I pulled the valve cover to take a peak inside and was pleasantly surprised. Everything looked clean and in good shape.

Well, I couldn't put it off any longer so I jacked it up and started removing bolts from underneath. I didn't get them all pulled today. I still have the 6 bolts that hold the trans to the engine, 2 more exhaust bolts and the 2 motor mount bolts but other then those it's outta there.

 This is an interesting photo. I found this while I was under it. This is a picture of the oil pan.

That is the connecting rod sticking out of the oil pan. When you here the term I threw a rod. This is what it means. This is also a good reminder that oil is important for your engine. The funny thing is I started this car 3 times since it threw the rod. In fact I was going to drive it into my garage so I wouldn't have to push it  but when I would put it in gear and give it some gas it was just too much for the engine. It did idle and rev up while not under a load. It sounded horrible and scared my kids so I quit trying.

This is the state of my garage right now and both me and my wife have been kicked out of the garage. Hopefully it won't be too long before we can get our cars back in.