Then I started accumulating parts. I traded out some work for brand new GM High Performance Parts aluminum heads. My buddy and speed shop owner Matt Johnson in St. Louis had an NOS Chevy steel crank. I called my friend Billy Leverentz in Buffalo, New York, who owns Oddy’s Automotive and asked him to look through his stash and see if he could find a nice 396 block. He had just one. Sweet.

I also wanted some forged pistons without a lot of compression and what we discovered was that the ONLY pistons for a 396 Chevy we could find were 14.5:1 units, so I had Billy order them. He then race-prepped the 396 block. He bored it 30-over and milled the domes off the pistons.

In the meantime, I was looking around for some brackets and other pieces for the engine and found a pallet-load of big block parts--heads, intakes, A/C components, and other stuff--in California for $100, bought it and had it shipped here to the MaxChevy headquarters in the Phlegm Building in downtown O’Fallon, MO.

Next came my failed attempt to I-beam a set of rods. I had done a set about 20 years ago and forgot what a giant pain in the rear that job is. Attempting it again truly drove me to increase my self-medication.

About the time I got all of those prep jobs finished, fall was turning to winter in St. Louis  and we don’t do work on the Elk or on any part of her when the weather is too cold to have a beer while doing it. So I decided to push her into my garage with my wife (She Who Must Be Obeyed) helping me and in doing so dented the Elk’s just-painted tail gate with the bumper of my van. My neighbor, Dennis, looked at it and casually said, “I figured you’d do that.” I grinned at him while inside screaming, “Where the &%##@ were you when I started doing this?” 

So here we sit in February and there are signs of spring everywhere and it’s almost warm enough to work in the unheated garage and drink beer, so we  are starting on the assembling the Elk’s new engine so that Abe then can shove it back between the rails.

In the meantime, every time I open the garage door I see that freakin’ dent. C’mon summer and burnin’ rubber!