One complaint about the SM plates is that they mixed Standard and Metric fasteners. The studs plates have M12 hardware in them, but the smaller bolts for the caster adjustment are 5/16"... Seriously? Just use M8s (Like I did)
Worked on getting wires to the firewall bulkhead connector together, as that was the last of the underhood wiring I needed to sort out, aside from adding connectors to the MAF sensor and the AC pressure transducer. I don't know where those will live yet, so I'm holding off a bit.
I filled 27 of the 29 locations on the connector. This is all stuff inside or at the rear of the car (fuel system, etc)
I went ahead and populated 3 extra wires and I have the stuff for the cruise control, just in case I can get that to work.
I'm planning on running the bulkhead wiring outside the engine bay and pop in behind the pass strut tower. Gonna need to open up that hole a bit though.
The connector will be mounted in the same location of the old factory ECU wiring. I'll be making an adapter to mount the Deutsch connector. The wiring is still all open right now, as I want to get stuff together so I can power things up and get the tune flashed and make sure the car starts. Then I'll tidy it all up.
Going back to the CC plates.
I needed to redo the risers for the poly bushings, but haven't been able to get any material yet.
However, I had these old things.
They were a couple of fixed-caster mounts I made up at least 20 years ago. They were probably on my old '84 XR-7. These were a less aggressive version of what I have on the TBird. I just needed part of the riser, so I chopped them off.
Just need to finish weld and coat them, and they're all set. (I noticed that one of the centers is slightly lower than the other, but for what this car will be doing, that couple mm difference isn't going to matter)
Next is to sort out the wiring from the bulkhead connector on the inside of the car.
Well, it was supposed to be raining all day today, but it didn't. Got a little time out in the garage.
I wound up getting some CC plates for this thing.
They're Speedmaster brand that I got off ebay. Not 100% impressed with them, and I wasn't too keen on using a mono-ball set-up on this car. I figured I could live with it for now...until I decided not to. I wanted to use a poly bushing set-up like I have in the TBird for years, and have with the BBK CC plates in the LTS. So, what did I do? Grabbed the calipers and opened up the CAD software. I reverse-engineered the bushing tower plate and will weld up a replacement set of those for these, with a tube modified for the poly bushings. While I was CAD-ing, I've been wanting to replace the OLD extreme caster plates I have the the TBird, so I redid some base and stud plates that will fit the TBird. Put in an order with Sendcutsend.com and will have parts to redo these, as well as make a new set for the TBird. (More on all of that when I get to it)
Back to the airbox project, I had parts arrive for that.
It's the 2015-18 Mustang air box. I think I have a plan to mod it and be able to use it. Going to mess with that later.
Most of the time today was spent getting wiring in place.
I have the fuse box temp mounted in the location and have begun getting wires where they need to go. Doesn't look much different than before, but now we have new wiring in there. Also, most of that nonsense on top of the engine is going to go away. It's just staying there until I make the needed cuts and connections that delete it.
More things will be happening the next week-ish, as I'll probably still be off work and my mobility has greatly increased over the past couple of days.
Yeah, the pain is manageable. No much more than before, just different. All of the tissue, etc around the site is angry.
The original location for the fuse box was going to be on the PS near the strut tower. My desire to not relocate the battery and use a stock-sized one caused the same interference issues. Since I had nothing going in this spot on the DS, I moved it there (and lengthened a bunch of the wiring as needed.
I think I like the spot closer to the strut tower, honestly.
Just trying to get it into its home, so I can start making all of the needed connections for power and other stuff. I'm using the relays, etc in the box for lighting/fans/fuel pump, etc.
This engine bay stuff I can do while I'm limited on mobility, so I'm going to try and take advantage of the bit of time off work and the time alone at home during the day to make a little progress. I still have about another week in this brace they have on me, so that's annoying.
Well, I'm 2 days post surgery and I can hobble around at least. The weather is beautiful today, so I got out for a bit of pondering on the car.
I'm trying to decide where I want the fuse/relay box to live and how that's going to affect my MAF and air box location.
It's going to live on the DS of the engine bay for sure, but I currently have 2 options for location. Either back by the strut tower
Or farther forward
You can see that the orientation of the throttle would like for the air box to be in that front corner (which it is on the 2011 Mustangs).
Using the stock Mustang airbox is out, as it's too big to fit in the spot if the fuse box is in there.
I really don't want to use a cone filter in the fender well. I'm going to have a PS pump in there anyway, so things are going to be crowded.
Short term might be a cold air box with a cone filter behind the headlights for the time being, as I either try and find a suitable stock-type air box that might work, or design and 3D print something that uses some sort of panel filter element.
I can buy or build an MAF sensor housing to replace the one that is integrated into the stock airbox lid, so that's not an issue.
Well, I had hoped to toss the front suspension on the car before my surgery in a week, but I realized I didn't have one part to make it happen. It was mainly for motivation and just to start to get an idea how it'll sit with drivetrain, etc in it. Going to be very limited on what I can do for the next few weeks.
At some point I'd tossed the original strut boots, because "I have the old set from the LTS I can use". However, I missed one key thing.
I'd modified the LTS boots for use with the CC plates.
All that rubber I ground off of there is needed when trying to use stock-type strut mounts. Oops.
I hadn't planned on putting CC plates on this car yet, even though it'll probably need them. So I need to get some, or just dig up a set of the stock boots for the time being.
I'm going to be chomping at the bit to get at this thing once I am mobile again. I'll probably be in the garage on crutches doing what I can regardless.
So I pulled it out and threw it in the trash. new will be going in when it's time.
Still a bunch of gross under it.
The only hole is in the "plug" on the pass side rear floor area. The rest is just surface rust. Had a little water ingress over the past couple of decades sitting out. You can see the remnants of the build sheet on the passenger floorpan next to the seat bolts.
The rust will be treated and the plug replaced and sealed. Now I have access to run the wiring I need to the back.
The surgery is just arthroscopic, not a replacement. Managed to damage the socket lining due to some other issues. Pain of some sort most days. Was really bad when I was cycling, but some PT and readjustment on the bike has shifted that to discomfort instead of pain. I'm very active, and having my riding and running cut down by over 1/2 has done a number on my mental state.
The wiring isn't that terrible. Every connector is ID'd and recorded. Still gonna be fun, and I'm not final wrapping things until I get the car to fire up.
OK, well winter set in and I didn't have much time to fiddle with things that were out of the garage.
Speaking of the garage. Part of my holiday was spent getting 2" insulation up on the roof rafters to help maintain the heat a bit.
It was open rafters and while I have a heater in there, it doesn't do well at keeping things warm when it gets super cold, and it ran all of the time, which kills my electric bill. Finished it up between X-mas and NY. While the concrete floor was cold-soaked for a bit, almost immediately I could tell it was working. For sure the heater didn't run as much as it did. Confirmation came in the most recent bill for that time period. Compared to last year, it was quite a bit colder on average, but the usage was down by 25% over the same time period. I call that a win.
Now to the car stuff. Wiring, wiring, wiring. Spent most of the frozen time working on harnesses, etc.
I had originally planned to mount the fusebox over on the PS of the engine bay, but it was going to really be crowded with the battery, etc, so I opted to move it to the DS.
There it's crowding out the airbox I was thinking about using, but I'll be able to figure something out.
I did design up a bracket to mount the fusebox and 3D printed it. The red bracket in the picture is just the mock-up, but I printed the "real" one out of carbon-filled nylon.
At this point, I need to get stuff laid out in the engine bay to finalize some wiring lengths and prepare the bulkhead connector for the 20-ish new wires that need to enter the cabin. Inside, I need to yank out the carpet. One, it's nasty and will be replaced. Two, I need to have access to run wires to the back for the FP and other emissions stuff that's at the rear of the car. OBD2 diagnostic port and throttle pedal need to be wired as well.
I needed to shift the car around on it's stands a bit to be able to open the tailgate, but I needed to get the trans mount installed, so that was properly supported. The task to day was to get the Stiffler's mount in place.
It wasn't a drop-in, as I needed to slot or elongate the slots in each of the frame brackets. Designed for a Fox, yes, but not the LTD/TBird floorpan. This mounting is temporary, as eventually I'm doing SFCs, etc. under the car, and will tie this mounting into that. I need to get the suspension on the front of the car and be able to properly load things up to design and install such things. Seeing as the LTS will need something similar, I'll make a couple sets.
Need to get the fuel system together, and I have a Deatshwerks DW200 pump on the way. Similar to the Walbro 255hp.
That's where we are at the moment. I'm on a time crunch to get some things done before the end of April. Have a hip surgery coming up and that will take me out of doing the heavy and contortive work for a few weeks. Not going to be able to climb around on the ground for a bit.
I would use SN-95 struts, mainly due to the extended length. I picked up a set of the Koni non-adjustable orange struts(STR.T) for the LTS, which is the same as your 85 TBird. Decent choice for a driver. I've used KYBs as well, but they don't last too long.
On the rear, you really have no choice, if you want something decent. All of the 79-04 Mustang shocks are too short to use as-is. Either make yourself a set of my old lower shock brackets (I have the old drawings linked here on the forum) or get a set from 23Parts.com, as they've put them into production and should have them on their website.
Are you talking "base" V6 convertible, or V8 convertible?
On the GT and Cobra springs, there isn't a whole lot of difference. The Cobra spring rates are a slightly lower at first glance, but the progressive rate is different and get more aggressive as you compress the springs more. They might feel "softer". The load rating is about the same. The V6 springs have a linear rate (on all 4 corners IIRC, but for sure on the rear). They also have a lower load rating. Not recommended.
Somewhere I have the specs for all of the standard 96-98 springs based on the 3-letter codes. It has been over 25 years since I was digging around in these. If I have a look, I might find the paper with the details.
In '99, Ford changed the way the values on the springs were listed on the tags. Before that, you would have the 3-letter code and the spring and load ratings listed (Metric). Such as "RRR" which was a '96-98 Cobra rear spring had "28.9/3470" which is the spring rate in N/mm and load rating in N. Converting that to lbs/in and lbs is 28.9x5.7 lbs/in and 3470/4.44 lbs. Or 165 lbs/in and 780lbs. As an example, the stock rear springs in my old '84 XR 7 were "JAD" "33/4200" (185 lbs/in and 944 lbs)
In the end, the main difference in the springs is the load rating, as they changed what springs were in the cars based on options, etc. The V8 convertible springs were always the highest load rating, which is what I tended to use on the rear of my cars. (I have always tried to use Motorsport C-Kits on the front). You can see in the example above, the rear springs on our cars are kind of beefy.
Anyway, probably a lot more than you asked for, but it does remind me to try and find that info, for posterity sake.
