I had a kinda lazy week. I had a few hours that I should have spent in the shop, which were wasted away watching live timing from The Chili Bowl.... I did get out there last night while we didn't have any drivers competing and started easing my way into this T5 swap.
87 CFI 3.8 as stated above. So far I have collected:
sn95 T5 and v6 bellhousing
'83 F100 3.8 flywheel(same part number as 5.8L) 164T, 28oz
'83 F100 10" clutch
'96 F150 5.8L manual trans starter
Fox pedals
Clutch cable
Hurst shifter
All my research, mostly here on FTBCF, says this should be the correct combination of parts to complete the mission. We are going to find out together!
First things first, I gotta get rid of that green speedo drive gear
With any decent rear gear ratio, and my 275/40-17 tires, the green(8T) drive gear requires a 21 or even 23T driven gear. 23T driven gears are notorious for self destructing and should be generally avoided if at all possible. Thankfully, my junk pile contains various remnants of T5. Notable here is that the turbo 4cyl T5 received a black(6T) speedo drive gear while most 5.0 and n/a 2.3 T5's got a yellow(7T) gear.
It just so happens that the majority of my junk pile is 2.3T leftovers :hick:
With that done, I turned attention to the rest of the sn95 T5. Now normally, I am the guy your mother warned you about, and I will toss an unknown jy T5 in a car just to find out if it is any good. They are simple enough to swap, and if they are good to go as is, I don't ever really need to open the case....ever. Even I have my limits, however....three different colors of RTV is too many! I had to open it up and double check things since it was on the bench and I already had the tailshaft housing off. I found a broken bolt in the top cover, and as expected, the red RTV wasn't under the top cover at all, just smeared on the outside attempting to stop whatever leak was present from the lack of clamping force on the one corner. Guts look good. Pads on the shift forks even look great. Drilled out the broken bolt and retapped the hole. I cleaned all the mating surfaces and then realized I was out of black RTV.
Then my keg ran out of beer! I called it a night and shut everything down.
I like the thought of ditching the stock chassis side upper locations. They are proven failure points and they are complicating your install. I see no upside to keeping them. Cutting them out and adding a new lateral tube to hang new mounts will also allow you to incorporate multiple verticle locations for geometry adjustments. This may come in handy especially if you cut down the axle mounts.
Here they are installed, and you see the rear Konis too
I kept the right axle tube mounted chassis hose and reused the axle hard lines from the original 7.5 The new brackets hold the connection between the new caliper flex hoses and the shortened hard lines.
It's pretty tedious bleeding brakes solo when you forget the racecar bleeder bottles at work, but I got it done enough to take a short test drive from the flat stall onto the lift.
I looked at the ColorBond site real quick and didn't see an OEM match listed for Shadow Blue interior. I'd like to find a (very)close match as I only want to paint the a-pillar trims.
What about clears? Definitely not gloss, but have you used a satin, or low luster clear on any of your panels?
I have never painted or dyed any interior parts. Since it is proving difficult to turn up a decent pair of blue a-pillar trim pieces, it may be worth giving a shot. Muttwood is working on boxing up a pair, but continues to forewarn me about the cost of shipping :yikes:
Let's start with general info.
Assuming there are special/different paints for interior,
What products have you used?
Who has the closest color match?
Where do you buy?
From there I would imagine there are instructions on the product to follow. What about prep? Mild de-greaser? Dish soap? Looking for some advice from those of you who have traveled this path before.
