Clutch brackets and clean-up for the radio & heater delete

I spent most of the day yesterday working on the clutch assembly and a few of the radio & heater delete tasks.  The first project was related to the clutch and required a fairly significant amount of work to do the mock-up and get the right position for 2 simple brackets.  As you can see in the photo below I took the block off the stand and put it on the frame to help get the right position for the z-bar bracket.  Even though the assembly manual shows a 1.80" position based on the reference point I really didn't want to take the chance of it being the in wrong position.

Here's a close-up of the bracket tack welded to the frame along with the smaller return spring bracket tacked to the firewall that you can see in the background on the lower right.  When I got the car it was a automatic and someone along the way must have removed the bracket since I didn't have it on the car.  This is a also a very critical piece of the assembly to ensure the clutch returns to the top position after pressing the clutch.  In the end it took about 4-5 hours to do the mock-up and about 5 minutes to weld the brackets.

In the picture below you can see that I've continued the heater and radio delete work by filling in the defroster holes in the dash along with the speaker hole.  The dash pad has a notch that I'll be filling in later to complete the dash work.  Now all that's left is a bit of work with the dolly and hammer and a bit of filler to clean it up.

The last thing I did was to take the engine assembly out of the plastic bags and I figured I'd go ahead and document and confirm all of the casting information.  As you can see in the photo below the block casting # is 14015445, which was is a 454 4-bolt HI PERF passenger use from 1975-1987. There was a casting date of F298 which appears to be June 29th 1978.  The block is also a service replacement part number from what I was able to tell.

Here's a picture of the crankshaft casting # 3967416 which is a 1053 forged steel crank with nitride heat-treated journals.

Here's a picture of the dimpled HI PERF connecting rods.

Below you can see the heads the motor came with that have a casting # 14096188 that are rectangle port, open chamber, 454 service replacement, also used on later Mark IV LS-6, LS-7 and 454 HO crate motors, 116cc chambers

Now things are starting to get much more interesting than working on all of the rust :)  I have put the seat and dash in place so that I can mock-up the changes to the dash.  Since I've been working on the heater delete I also had to fill the section in the center of the dash where the controls were located.  It's filled in this photo as you can see.  The next area to focus on is where the speedometer and radio are located.  My plan is to replicate the layout of a Ferrari but with Autometer gauges.  I have a 5" tachometer that I'll place in the middle and then to the left I'll put the Amp & Water gauges and to the right the Speedo, Oil Temp, Oil Pressure, etc.  The intent is to cover up the remaining section all the way over to where the trim panel sits above the glovebox.  One of the great things about the car is that the dash is steel so with a bit of planning, grinding and welding I can form it to match my design.