Gear stack coming out!, Get ready doc. Options

[SGB]

I gotta lot going on with the car. When it returned from my son's homecoming, it was backfiring back through the carbs (mildly, and different barrels, about 1 or 2 minutes between "poops"), so I'm doing some compression evaluations. Also got the carbs off to rebuild, since I originally thought I had a blocked passsage. Gonna mess with the jetting a little too I think. And this is a good time to replace my fuel lines, which I thought had already been done, and maybe even weld up some suspension cancer I know is in there. But the instigator of this is really DR. EVIL (cue scary music). Over the next few days I believe the gear stack is gonna come on down. Get ready Doc, 'cause it'll be scary. She's been hacking along for several years now, and it has gotten even worse. Here are pics as we prep for surgury...