As long as I'm re-doing the motor, I figured I'd fix the motor plate setup and down bars as well.

Here is how it was set up before.


Can't see it well in the pic, but the motorplate mounted to tabs on the downbars from the backside, so there's no way to pull the motor with the plate attached.
Major PITA.

Now don't laugh, cause it looks bad now, but the block is just an old junker to use for positioning, the real one is at the machine shop.
Anyway, the plate is replaced by elephant ears (although I'm seriously considering an AR Engineering plate instead.


The ears are bolted from the frontside to tabs welded to the frame rails.


Also re-did the down bars to lay them over next to the inner fenders and they are stitched to the shock towers.





It's still ugly, but as soon as I pull the old block out I'll be re-painting the engine bay, re-doing the wiring and re-plumbing the brake, trans and fuel lines.