Call me crazy - Ranchero's (again)

[Luva65wagon]

I would if it wasn't $500 and my last experience with one wasn't a leaker, which though it hasn't happened will be causing the removal of the transmission. I like the idea of external stuff, but I agree the feel was nice.

[Luva65wagon]

Slowly plugging along with this update. Gene and I mounted the flywheel and bell-housing last Wednesday and mounted a dial indicator in the hole to measure run-out. Tremec has a pretty strict .010 total run-out for these transmissions and I was pretty bummed to see the dial swing .085! The solution to this is to use off-set block pins clocked just-so to shift the bell-housing over to better center it. They don't make offset pins to fix and error that large, so being I had rain coming into the garage and now this issue... I went into the house.

Friday morning I was expecting the roofing contractor to come give me an estimate on my roof so I got under the car to put the bell and stare at things a little while I waited. When I did I noticed it didn't look like the bell housing was actually pulled up tight to the block due to the cable-clutch boss hitting the headers (left lower corner of the picture). So I pulled it off and filed the back-side of this section until it no longer touched the headers - and re-ran the run-out test. This time it was .007!

WhoHoo!

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I also thought that was a pretty appropriate number as well!

So now comes figuring out where to punch the hole in the floor for the shifter and then I can install the transmission and work on the mount. MDL sent the S10 cross-member, but I'm doing the Ford housing, so that ain't gonna work like they said it would. So will probably use the C4 mount I had with only minor hole elongating.

[doghows]

Well is this bad boy running again or what?? Update update!!

[Luva65wagon]

Fine, fine...

It's been slowly coming together. Only having a couple days a week to work on it. Gene came out on Friday and wanted to be entertained, so I thought I'd entertain him with a couple rolls of blue tape.

grille63.jpg

After I mocked the transmission into the tunnel (no clutch or anything) I made the hole for the shifter to go through. This cut right through the cross-member brace, so I had to do some welding to solidify that to the floor sheetmetal. And I didn't want the gaping holes down into that cross-member piece on each side, so I cut me some patch panels and closed those off, seam-sealed them, and then undercoated the underside again. Kind of a black hole now, should have taken a picture before gooping it in black.

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Gene is going to be mad at me, but the show must go on... I put the clutch and everything back in on Saturday and put in the transmission. Way easy - especially after pulling the shifter handle out. Had it in within a couple minutes.

floorhole.jpg T5in.jpg

Then I started working on a hole patch cover to reduce the hole size around the shifter. Will probably wrap that in a rubber gasket too.

floorhole3.jpg

Then I can start my work on fitting a clutch master and slave to this, which is where the real fun begins. I'm using the clutch slave and master from a Mazda MPV because I liked how the reservoir was remote. It's gotta fit just below the brake master cylinder... somehow.

ClutchMC.jpg

[doghows]

Is that the grill I powered for you like two years ago?? Dang dude.
As far as the black stuff, "you gotta goop what you gotta goop!"
Nice work, how do you think she's gonna skoot when it's back together?

[BadBird]

He is going to go to the drag strip with me next year!!!!!!!! The installation looks very good. Bet you can't wait to bang some gears. Larry

[doghows]

Roger on the drag strip? I'm not buying that, he's too obsessed with keeping his cars clean. I don't see him wanting to clean rubber off his rear quarter panels!!

[Luva65wagon]

I think it would be great to take it down the track, but would never compete with you Larry. As for cleaning it up afterward - heck I'd leave the rubber. Same color as the rest of it.



I've felt the car lost some character when I went to the V8. It was fun to drive, though somewhat gutless, with the 200/4-speed. It was for sure quicker with the 289/C4, but not much fun. So I think the 5-speed will bring back some of that joy. The main thing, though, is that it won't be screaming at me all the time on the freeway since swapping the rear-end out. Having the OD will get the RPM's into normal range.

And yes, Steve, Gene is working on painting the grill you had on the SD before you were gifted with the coo-de-gra (however that's spelled) of gifts. While I have that grill out I'm seriously considering doing what Larry did:
http://www.rainierfalcons.com/forums...&postcount=107
He pushed the radiator forward quite a bit. I have a mere 2.25" between my radiator and the end of the water pump. Getting a fan to fit in this space and not hit anything has been very hard. Fan that was in there had to be bent in many places to fit. May go electric if I gain enough room somehow.

Here's the finished filler plate over the shifter. Not seen is the rubber gasket I draped into the hole. Because I've done 3 transmissions and the carpet is looking pretty ratty with holes - I'm debating replacing the carpet. Unless I can think of an alternative. That's not priority, but the removing the old shifter hump could happen if I changed the carpet. Not needed with a T5.

floorhole4.jpg

[doghows]

Well crap I'd better get my rear end swap done! Maybe we can do a track day with the club somewhere! I'd drive over for that.
Chero is looking good, how soon is the first test drive?

[Luva65wagon]

...how soon is the first test drive?

IDK. I'm doing the T5, but also looking at improving the cooling, WIAI™, which is turning into a real bear. After eyeing what Larry did cutting into the core support I'm not so sure I can do that. I don't have the better front-end with sub-frame like he has. I pulled the full front grille and hood latch bits off last night to see if I can get a pusher fan in front of the radioator, which I think I can, and then maybe go back to a more stock fan on the engine (too) if needed. I literally have 1.75" between the nose of the water pump and the radiator.

I'm also looking seriously into the electric power steering on this. I have (most of) all the parts, but want to stare at it a lot-a-bit before committing to cutting into anything. I was under the dash last night just trying to get the brake/clutch/steering support out to install roller bearing into it and will have to pull the steering column out anyway. So that might seal the deal. There's a lot of fabrication to do if I go that route.

[doghows]

OMG The WIAI strikes again. Im sure I'll hit a few of those if I ever get started on mine. It was too nice today so I drove her to work!!
Good luck Roger!

[Luva65wagon]

OMG The WIAI strikes again.

When doesn't it?

[Luva65wagon]

With a lot of head scratching and staring I managed to squeeze a cooling fan into this thing. Had to cut the back side of the hood support and then re-work it a bit, but it's in there. Had to cut a bit in the upper part of the core support to clear the fan, and a few pits of the plastic on the fan too. But it pushes a lot of air and should help keep this cool. Still plan to have the engine fan, but can make it a smaller one than it was.

cooling_fan.jpg cooling_fan2.jpg

Then I worked to put in the roller bearing for the clutch and brake pedal support. That allowed me to determine where to drill for the clutch master cylinder. I've drilled the holes, but ran out of time to do anything more there.

pedal_support.jpg

I then went to determine whether this electric power steering unit might fit into a Falcon.

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What I concluded was no, not unless I don't want emergency brakes, clutch or brake pedals, or windshield wipers. All these seem pretty important to me, so I bagged this idea. I'll sell it all off. Of course I needed to pull the header, and steering column, steering box to determine all of this - though the steering column had to come out to get the pedal support out. I'm going to haul my steering box and the 4 steering box cores I have to RedHeads next week and have them rebuild mine, WIAI™. They buy cores so I'll put that money towards this.

steeringgear.jpg

[doghows]

I hate to say it but all those WIAI are paying off. It's looking very clean as always nice work.
Can you add swapping in a rear axle into a delivery to your list of WIAI? I can't seem to get the time to get out there and get after it. Maybe over turkey day weekend!

M

[Luva65wagon]

Can you add swapping in a rear axle into a delivery to your list of WIAI?

I don't think WIAI™ works that way, but nice try.