Got it to turn over. Turns out shitty terminal connections were the problem, re-did those and got it spinning.
Not getting spark though. Dug out the FSM and went threw a couple of the test procedures but haven’t found the issue yet.
Gonna bug the kid I bought it from, he claimed it would start right up once the weather warmed up (bought it in Feb).
The harness is also a total hack job; its not making life any easier.
Got it running. Loose wire in the ignition harness.
Next step, clean up the harness. Also ordered BadDog frame rails, those should be here Friday.
Frame rails came in. Too bad is raining and 40 degrees outside.
Subscribed. :thumbup
New plan, harness is bad enough that I have to pull it out to fix it…so instead of wiring the car twice (once for this summer and once for the VH45) the VH45 will be going in this summer.
Anyone know of any engine distributors that might be able to source me a VH45DE and harness?
Harness out - as you can see, parts of it were a little shoddy.
Drivers side floor pan, only a small spot needs replacing, maybe 8"x12".
Passenger side floor pan. Little worse on this one, but again, I won’t need to replace the whole pan.
The frame rails also have some spots, those will be cut out, the rest of it covered in a rust killer, and then one of these will be welded on over it. These are twice as thick as the stock rails. Then the whole bottom of the car will be covered in POR-15.
The seats are in great shape, only two small seam splits in the passenger seat. I have a set of Nismo seats I plan on using, so I might make these into nice shop chairs or something (unless someone comes along offering money).
This is the corner of my garage. KA24DE and transmission, L series transmission, and an CLSD R200. The KA stuff and the L series transmission are up for grabs if anyone wants them.
Pulled the motor out today. This was my first attempt at pulling a motor out of anything. Had no problems getting everything unhooked and what not. Did have a little trouble actually lifting it out though. I bought a load leveler thinking it would help me tip the motor up to get it out of the car. The thing ended up causing more problems than it solved. With that hooked up between the motor and the shop crane the crane could go high enough. In the end we got the motor stable, let the tension out of the chain, and took the leveler off. Went much smoother after that.
Oh, and anyone of you have a good way of getting transmission fluid out of blacktop? The one thing I forget to do was drain that before starting to lift the motor out and it got everywhere.
Still trying to source a VH45 so if anyone has a lead on one, PLEASE PM ME! I did find one on ebay and I emailed to get some more info on Wednesday and still haven’t heard back.
Between Sabres games next week I’ll be prepping the rotted out areas under the car and cutting the patches I’ll need.
Few photos:
Everything is all unhooked and the shop crane hooked up.
On its way out.
Finally, after an hour of muscling by me and my two roommates, its out.
Great progress! Wish I could help you on the VH45 search, my only suggestion would be to keep an 1UZFE or an LSx in mind as well 
Keep us posted!!!
VH45 is much more bad ass IMO, although after market is near zilch :banghead
Sweet project, I love the the fender mounted mirrors.
My friend has a 71 as well that we are considering either an rb26dett or a 1uzfe swap in. Should be a ton of work either way. The 1uzfe would be cheaper but the rb26 would be pretty sweet too.
