In response to Emanuel's plea for some posts here's a pic of my ongoing engine rebuild.
Hardy Engineering have rebuilt the gearbox.
Thunder Road are sorting the engine with Edelbrock heads and as a result and I quote 'the original equipment rockers and push rods, will not work with the Edelbrok heads, so we need to go the aftermarket route. Unfortunately the rockers i was planning on using, are no longer in production. Apparently they stopped making the at the beginning of last year.
I have found a replacement manufacturer in the states, and it looks like they are the only people manufacturing rockers for your engine, I now need to work out the correct push rod length, I also need to source, or have made, some spacer to go between the rockers and rocker posts, for the inlet valves, Edelbrok recommend, that the inlet rockers are off set, because they have move the position of the inlet valves in the head, compared to the original position, in the ford heads.'
That was back in February. We are now at 'supplier is finding out if we need the spacers for the rockers, recommended by the head manufacturer (Edelbrock). The engine is 85% built, so not much more to complete. Mainly the original parts to be bolted back on, Inlet manifold, water pump etc. The header tank needs repairing, its leaking from the filler neck, and there are some parts that need cleaning up and painting before re-fitting'.
It's been over six months without the car and I'm starting to go cold turkey especially now that spring is here. Can't imagine how hard it is for Emanuel to go through the multi-year restoration process but I guess we all look towards the end result.