Well the wiring harness is on the way and I picked up the steering wheel, the custom horn button should be here today... provided that the post office will make it through the snow! No, that is not a Honda Element on steroids, that is my Bronco with about 2 feet of snow pilled on top! While I do not plan on doing anything with the paint or interior for a while, and even when I do order new seats for safety more than anything else, I won't be doing any custom upholstery for a very long time. I do need to make a choice on the color I'll be tenting the Raptor Liner that will adorn the exterior in June or July. I went to Reno Paint Mart who spent hours with me looking through color books and mixing up several samples (and only charged me $30 for the effort!). The following is the end result of round 1. The goal is a functional, easy to care for coating and color that will resist and hide trail scratches and even minor dents and dings. In this pic, the "Fashion G...

I got the EFI ordered today. It is a custom setup and will take a month or so to get to me. That means it should arrive around the same time as the engine. Perfect! The kit will connect to the gauges I plan to order and to the distributor I'll be ordering next week, making for very smooth and tight integration. Next up will be the 26 circuit weather proof wiring harness and rocker switches to control all the electronics... "all" ha! Lets see... There's the running lights, headlights, hi-beams (on the new column), emergency flashers (in the new column), and wipers. Yep that's all there is! No radio, no fancy gizmos! I'll most likely add a few additional rockers for future upgrades, but otherwise the harness should go into the vehicle in less than a day. The hardest part will be demolition of the wiring.

Alright, so the 2F is bolted to the hoist and SHOULD be going to the shop later this week for rebuild. I JUST ordered a complete Saginaw power steering conversion kit and ididit tilt column that should be here in about a month... backordered, bleh! The motor will take about the same amount of time to complete so I am hopeful that my 40 will be road worthy by my birthday. What to do while I wait (impatiently) for these items... I will pull the 4-speed transmission, the 3-speed transfer case and rebuild them, media blast them, and paint them. I'll install the twin-stick conversion on the transfer case and get them mounted back onto the open chassis (I will bolt the rebuilt 2F to them and install all three at once). I also have a chassis harness to install and two axles that need to be rebuilt, new 455 gears, and lockers installed. I think the axles will have to wait though... Maybe in July.