Fitting Frustration and Rusty Revelations

My first task after dinner last night was installing the fittings I'd bought the evening before and running the reinforced hose between the compressor and the garage piping inlet. The first connection went fine, but when I opened the package to put the final fitting on the compressor end, I found I'd mistakenly selected the wrong size at Lowe's. So, it's back there this evening. Maybe I can couple the trip with a family visit to the frozen yogurt shop.

Moving on to parting out the Corsa ‘vert, I started by trying to remove the wild 4-barrel intake from the engine. I was slowed down significantly by the inability to wrench more than a sixteenth of a turn on the inner nuts holding the assembly to the heads, and finally gave up after convincing myself that they’ll be more accessible once the drivetrain is out of the car. I then pulled out the manual and turned to the page with drivetrain removal instructions. Following them, I disconnected and unbolted everything up to the point of rolling the jacks underneath and removing the final fasteners attaching the engine and transmission to the body. I’m saving that for this evening. Surprisingly I did not break a single bolt during the process, which is amazing considering the heavy coating of rust that seems to permeate every surface of this Midwest car.