UPDATE 02/28/09: Been kinda quiet the past month after the engine fire on 2/08. Most of the damage was to the hood, the firewall, the distributor cap, and a whole bunch of wiring.
Huge thanks to everyone that offered support, help, and parts after the fire. You guys are great!
Here's the pics of the carnage.
The good news is that insurance covered most of the damage. So, I've spent the past couple of weeks deciding what direction to take with the truck. To fix the firewall properly, the engine would need to come out. As long as the firewall was getting worked on and the engine was out, "might as well" get the hacked up firewall patched correctly. So, I started tearing the front clip off to prep for pulling the engine. Here's how far I've gotten as of this afternoon.
If you look close under the dash, right above the tranny hump, you can see the sheet metal that is just screwed in to cover up the hole they cut.
A whole big mess of parts that came off
And well, I figured as long as the engine was out I "might as well" do a little upgrade. I picked this up used from a member from a fellow board member.
More to come...