It's funny that your working on the shift tower now. I just recently tore down one of mine and sandblasted it, then painted it. Interesting fact, it uses fiber swivel joints instead of copper/bronze ones.
That's the only thing I wish I worked on more. The starter swivel linkage was a little tight and after pulling it 30 times today, I wish the lube I put on it was better. It should loosen up over time....right?
There it is, Piglet in a barn. Didn't get a "Will it start" video or many pictures, trouble-shooting all day. It runs, drives, shifts and is under a roof.
I did get pictures of what I was trouble shooting. It turns out you 'can' put a distributor in wrong after you remove it to paint the engine. We had lots of rurr-rurr-rurr-rurr-ruur, played with the distributor then got rurr-rurr-rurr rurr- BANG, so I knew we had spark. That white line on the crank is supposed to line up with the pointy thing and the rotor thingy is supposed to point to number one. It didn't.
After popping the 9-8024 TM open we played with the rotor, lifted the distributor, followed the TM and everything lined up.
It's a huge process getting a power plant hooked back up. I couldn't have done it without cousin Dale converting the trans capacity of 16 quarts to litres, Mattech, Mopar man from the Mac, engine placer Chris, Duramax Wayne for bringing parts back from the original drive train and even the neighbors for water. Today, soldier B Sean watched under the hood, adjusted the timing and warned me if anything was wrong. From exhaust, grounds, linkage, fluids, hoses, pipes, fuel, electrical and everything we've done, Thanks for the help fellas.
After Piglet was idling we kept it running to let things get warm, check for leaks...... and the air compressor began compressing. Decided to open the drain on the tanks, starting with the drivers side air tank and watched at least 4 liters of water pour out, I mean a gallon, 4 litres, a gallon, it was a lot. With winter coming it's a lucky truck we got at it when we did. Disgusting Piglet.