Another update, if anyone's listening (this has taken so long that if I have put everyone to sleep I wouldn't be surprised): anyway, this was a vacation week for me, so some things have gotten accomplished: 1) final assembly of the radiator fan rig and installing it in the car. VERY close to the radiator indeed, we'll see how that works. 2) installing the sending units for the Smith's gauges, which I am about halfway through- hopefully to finish tomorrow- several trips to West Marine for various 1/8"NPT adapters 3) templating the cover plates which go right in front of the windshield frame 4) finding dash vents that will fit. We are trying some from Vintage Air- I don't know if they'll fit, but they are nice guys to deal with, very knowledgeable and efficient 5) working out how the dash wiring is going to go- if the vents fit, we'll have the dash painted and I'll start wiring it up 6) battery and cover in place, just need to make a holddown for it 6) there IS a place for everything that goes on the front engine room bulkhead, although I didn't think there would be. We'll mock this up next week- the fuel pumps, the voltage regulator, the coil, the fuel filter-regulator, the header tank, the expansion tank, and the MSD box- a place for everything, or pretty near so.I think we can get it all in there.
I have some photos, but will wait to post them as I expect to have some better ones etc before too long. The fan assembly interferes a bit with the nose panel, which will have to be relieved to clear the back of the fan frame. That was the price of getting them as close as possible to the radiator core, but I agree with everyone who said they would work better that way. I am not certain they would have worked at all the previous way.