I finished stripping the LT1 down to the bare block and pulled the crank and cam out. The bearings were worn, but nothing too scary. The outside of the block was rusty and horrible, so I decided to clean it up, and smooth all the edges off at the same time. Why? I don’t know. Who’s going to see it? Nobody apart from me. Strangely enough I feel good that I did though. I took most of the rough bits down with an angle grider, then switched to the die grinder and hand files. I took the 327 that is cast into both sides off as well, and a lot of the little casting marks. There is still some rust that I can’t get to, so I’m hoping to get it blasted clean.

I had an hour or so to work on it on Sunday, so I started off by knocking out the freeze plugs. I got them all out apart from the rear two which were blocked by the stand. I left them for when its off, and got back on the bodywork. The rear passenger door got knocked over in the garage ages ago and was scratched, so I sanded all the marks out, along with the filler that had been on there for months. It was low in one spot, and the metal was high in one spot so it was out with the panel hammers for the first time in ages. A quick clean off and a skim of filler and ready to sand when I get some time.