Love these rigs, but it's just a hot mess under the hatch. Takes a lot of the fun out of working on them. Just a lot going on up front. Looking good!

Nice to see that my cousin Manny is still hard at work, have you seen his 6.5 diesel conversion on his Motorhome.

The metal transmission cooling lines provide an electrical ground for the radiator to prevent electrolysis. If you are going to use rubber lines instead of metal, you need to provide a way to electrically bond the radiator to the engine block. While you have your battery wires out, you might want to run the positive wire from the starter directly to the battery + terminal. This will shorten the wire carrying the high current starter power by about 3 ft. Its enough to notice the starter will spin the engine faster. Originally the exhaust manifolds were bolted directly to the heads with no gaskets for maximum heat transfer. If your manifolds and heads are flat with no pitting, you can get a copper gasket from Dave Lenzi that will provide good heat transfer. Remflex gaskets can seal pitted and slightly warped manifolds, but the exhaust manifold will run hotter, so it shortens the manifolds life before cracking. I've had a Remflex on one side for several years and still going strong.

What is the advantage of a Ragusa pan? Or is it obvious because of the fins keeping the transmission fluid cooler?