Put a nice floor in the garage today. Some drop cloth for the moisture, and some particle board, and the whole thing is kind of cleaned up. It is still a ridiculous redneck solution for a garage, but it will work until I can figure something out (funding...) more permanent.

Also, continued working on removing the dash board. After backing the car out of the garage, I could get the door courtesy switches out of the car. This allowed me to see what else was holding the dash together. I then found the two bolts holding the steering column together, and got that out. Then the inevitable happened, and I had a 'well, crap, now that is going to need to be redone.' moment. As I was trying to remove the dash, the vinyl/plastic/whatever covering the top cracked. The whole thing is so old and brittle, it cracked like it was very hard plastic. The two defrost heater vents on the top needed to be taken out, and I had overlooked them. The have 4, almost impossible to get to (without taking the windshield out), self tapping screws holding them in place. These do not screw to the dash however. They screw down into the heater vents themselves, which are then screwed onto a flange of fiberglass.

Once I broke these free (literally.), I could pull the dash forward. It is not an easy feat. You need to make sure that as you are pulling it forward, you unbind the wires from whatever they are wrapped around. It is still not fully removed. I believe the next best course of action is to remove the wiring from the back of each of the gauges. This way I can liberate the whole dash board with out taking the gauges out, and label all of the wire looms as best I can.

Once I re-surface the dash, I will need to replace the switches. I found someone who linked to this website: Holden. that has some very nice icon-ed switches. Since I will be resurfacing the dash, I want to have switches that have some indication of what they are. With the current dash, the titles for the buttons are screened onto the veneer itself. I won't be attempting to replicate this. Once this is done, I plan on getting some foam, and some vinyl, and re-surfacing the vinyl portion of the dash as well. Hopefully, I can make this look as good as I imagine.

Tomorrow I plan to remove the transmission, so I can get to the engine. I think I have gotten to all of the lines and cables running to and from the engine, but I am sure I will find something still bound up as we try to lift the engine out. I am really anxious to get the new engine into the car, so I can start wiring up the sensors, and everything.