[yossarian19]

Well, I got the clearance I was looking for from the CPP member. All it took was acetylene and a ball peen hammer.
Even had a shot at welding the member in place, but had a learning experience instead.
Lesson 1: welders need to be maintained. Things like tip cleanliness and ground clamp condition matter. A lot.
Lesson 2: It's important to close the $%^ shielding gas bottle when not in use. This one was my co-worker's mistake, but it drove home the lesson for me.
Lesson 3: This one is yet to come, but it is in the proper use of grinding & cutting equipment for getting the X member back out, cleaned up, & put in correctly.

The silver lining is that my buddy Korwyn might be willing, for a few bucks & a few beers, to tune up the welder & burn the cross member into place competently while I'm working on customer cars some time. I'm learning to weld, and I'm glad to, but I'll be even gladder to get the engine into place & move on.

So, all in all, things are going damned slowly at the moment but hey, my first build. I'll try and cut myself some slack.