Well!  Been a while hasn't it???  This winter has sucked, it's been too cold to do anything in the garage.  :-(

Okay, I've gotten the whole front end apart and broke pretty much everything down.  I have the k-member all stripped down and lying on the floor for now.  The passenger side strut gave me a hard time, I needed a lot of liquid wrench and finally my breaker bar did it... with my vise clamped to the other end as I was standing on it to keep it from turning.  I got it cleaned up a bit too.  It's waiting for the ear repairs... the rear bolt on the passenger side was pretty tough to get out, it was rusted in there bad.  Suffice to say, all four bolts will need to be replaced when I put it back in.  The driver's side rear is still attached, when my spot weld bit comes in the mail, I'll drill the spot welds out that are holding that mount in there so I can pull that whole thing off... have to do that anyway to put the repair cap on the frame rail.

I cut into the floor to get at the passenger side mounting of the torsion bar mount crossmember and took it on out.  I've been having fun sandblasting the crossmember so I can paint it all purty... I set my old tent up in the garage so I don't blow sand all over the place.  Not the best system, but I don't have a blasting cabinet yet.   Anyway, once that spot weld bit comes, I'll cut out the driver's side bracket for the torsion bar crossmember so I can weld the repair cap over the frame piece that it's attached to.  I've been practicing welding a little... it isn't pretty, my stick-welding... but it should be solid and functional at least.  Once I get that piece in (and some primer thrown on it to stop any rusting), I'll turn my attention to the front frame rail (I don't have that piece yet)... once that's in (or maybe before), I'll repair the k-member.  Even the passenger side ear needs repair, it's kind of rusted out on the inner diameter where the bushing sits... so I'll weld a repair in there at least... and build a new ear for the driver's side.  Once I get those on there, I want to get the whole thing cleaned up (might pay someone to blast it) and then get it painted clean.  THEN... the process of cleaning up (sandblasting and painting) all of the front end components and replacing bushings and ball joints begins/continues.  Once I get the whole front end back together, THEN I'll rebuild the motor... since then I'll have somewhere to put it.  ;-)   Oh, before I put the k-member back in, I need to get the whole engine bay all cleaned up.  The inner fender on the driver's side needs repair where the battery tray was (or replace the inner fender) and there are other rusted spots here and there that I want to cut out and weld repairs on.  Once I get the metal all cleaned up, I want to paint the engine bay the cobalt color.  Suspension components I'm going to paint glossy black, k-member too.  I'll probably rig a tarp like a tent over the front end in order to sandblast that area without blowing it all over the garage.

Also, I took the spindle off of the driver's side upper control arm today.  Step by step, moving the ball forward... :-)