Well, got some goodies on the way...
TBI to Air Cleaner spacer (OE style) and stud (aftermarket), supply and return hard line sections, new coil to distributor wiring harness, newer style TPS pigtail (have the older harness)... that should be a majority of my "Oh Crap, I don't have (blank)" purchases.
Going to convince the Mrs. (I hope) to go ahead and splurge on the remaining parts because, at this rate, I'll only have a few more hours of work tied up in this thing. I decided to go ahead and piece back on the sheet metal. Naturally, things aren't lined up (say it ain't so!) 100%, but the hood and fenders are back on! No inner fenders, but I have a solution I will get to. Eventually.
Again, not going to be driven daily, so I can leave a few things "poor and in a hurry" for now...
And...
Blurry shot, night shooting with an old digitial camera because my spiffy one on my phone is gone (dropped a few times, the struggle is real). Don't mind the multi-colored hood. I got bored waiting on parts so I decided to watch paint dry instead.
Left Front Fender/Cowl/Door. Kinda sketchy.
Right Front Fender/Cowl/Door. Makes the other side look AMAZING by comparison. Luckily, everything is bolted together with just a handful of bolts, so adjusting the alignment won't be too bad. Wouldn't mind expert advice, though.
Some of what I've been up to around the engine. That mess of wires? Really not as bad as it looks. I have (almost) all of them a home and will be looming and taping everything up when I get it plugged in. I guess my line of thought is I want to have it all unwrapped to check for bad wires (the 4-pin distributor plug will need to be fixed) and then wrap it all up in a routing that won't be a pain to take off at whatever point I yank the engine.
Just enough to get it running, but no where near as amazing as some of the people's builds I've been inspired by, here.
Just for clarification, I know what I'm doing isn't 100%... optimal, I guess. Truthfully, this is one of the first times I've taken all that "book knowledge" years in this business has given me and actually applied it. So, it looks bad, now... but eventually, I'll polish this turd up.