I decided to wake up at 5 a.m. this morning to go out to the garage and do some wiring for the engine stand. I looked at my already-wired engine bay, and my bare engine stand... and I had a change of heart. I'm so eager to get this car running, I just figured I'd throw the engine into the car and get to work on it.

I'm glad I did -- by lifting up the engine, I had a change to play around with the clutch fork and noticed I could completely move it back and forth. I had just finished reading an e-mail on the bluebird mailing list about this exact problem: throw-out bearing collar size. I installed a short collar, which would have been fine with my previous pressure plate, but the newer one required a longer collar. Fortunately, I had a longer collar available, and after removing the transmission and installing it, I had everything back together pretty quickly.

The engine is currently in the engine bay, but not everything is lined up yet. Only one of the engine mounts is bolted down, and the transmission isn't bolted up to the car yet, causing the engine to tip back. This makes the front of the engine sit up really high, which makes me worry that the hood won't close.

After I get the transmission bolted up, I'll take some pictures. If the valve cover hits the hood, I'll have to hunt around for a shorter valve cover.