Emptying The Engine Bay, Part 7

I started this afternoon by draining and removing the master cylinder. I still have to remove the brake lines, but I need to get the car up in the air to do that.

I wanted to attack some of the grease buildup in the engine bay, mainly just to see how difficult it is going to be to get it off. I brought the sides of the tarp up and attached them to the car with magnets and twist ties. This created somewhat of a bowl under the front of the car to contain the water.  

I focused primarily on the K-Member. I doused it with Marine Clean, let it soak for about 10 minutes, and then sprayed it off with water. I was surprised at how much came off with little scrubbing. I did not even use hot water as Marine Clean recommends.

The next item on my list was to remove the intermediate steering shaft and eventually the power steering gear. I have the rock shield slid back and have taken out the retaining bolt. 

I next had to remove the nut and bolt from the upper intermediate shaft coupling. Once both of these were removed it needed to be pushed out of the steering gear stub shaft and then pulled off of the steering shaft.

The intermediate shaft has been removed.

Here is the intermediate steering shaft outside the car.

When painting the firewall this weekend, we were surprised to find a small crack in the upper firewall. On the engine bay side the crack can be seen dead-center in the picture below.

This is the same crack from the interior. I plan to drill a small hole at either end of the crack to stop it from spreading further. Then I will use POR-Patch to seal the crack and PowerMesh and POR-15 to reinforce and strengthen the area on the interior side. I am hoping that the crack will not be noticeable in the engine bay after it has been painted with POR-15.