BlueBird

Topic: BlueBird (Read 47185 times) previous topic - next topic

Reply #75 – January 01, 2019, 05:06:46 PM

First shot off the stands

Not bad! But it does look a bit like I have commitment issues. I mean, am I lowering this car, or not??
Another 1/4 coil off the rear TC springs, 1.5 coils total.

Much better

Up next brakes, and alignment. I pulled the stock MC and made a list of fittings needed to swap the 15/16" sn95 Cobra MC I still have from the white car.
Konis and T5 clutch parts are on the way.

BlueBird

Reply #76 – January 01, 2019, 05:38:42 PM

Looking pretty good!

BlueBird

Reply #77 – January 01, 2019, 09:57:40 PM

Looking good. Still have the stock rear control arms?

BlueBird

Reply #78 – January 02, 2019, 07:42:37 AM

That's a great looking car. I want another Bird.

BlueBird

Reply #79 – January 02, 2019, 11:20:30 AM

Quote from: thunderjet302;467572

Are you going to change out the stock rear control arms while you're swapping the rear axle?

Quote from: gumby;467577

No. The main goal for this round of suspension work is to get the car back on the road and somewhat presentable ... I know they will get upgraded down the road and I do not want to be double purchasing a bunch of parts. When I get into the major suspension redo, I will handle control arms at all corners.

Quote from: thunderjet302;468382

Looking good. Still have the stock rear control arms?

Yeah....:toilet:

BlueBird

Reply #80 – January 02, 2019, 02:11:23 PM

Christ. I should have gone back and reread :hick:

BlueBird

Reply #81 – January 11, 2019, 09:58:31 PM

A couple package deliveries later, I have more parts on the car

Front Konis

Cutting and flaring lines in the engine bay sucks while the engine is still installed...

I also made up a couple brackets for the rear flex hoses at the calipers

BlueBird

Reply #82 – January 11, 2019, 10:04:57 PM

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.

BlueBird

Reply #83 – January 11, 2019, 10:09:29 PM

Going up! Time to start soaking exhaust fasteners and scheming plans for some more of these parts I bought

BlueBird

Reply #84 – January 11, 2019, 11:37:46 PM

Quote from: gumby;468492

I also made up a couple brackets for the rear flex hoses at the calipers

I'm going to need to do that too.

Progress looks good!

What engine is in this thing?

BlueBird

Reply #85 – January 12, 2019, 07:00:32 AM

Cfi 3.8

BlueBird

Reply #86 – January 18, 2019, 03:43:27 PM

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.

BlueBird

Reply #87 – January 18, 2019, 04:21:04 PM

My mother always did warm me about guys like you.

BlueBird

Reply #88 – January 19, 2019, 09:47:41 PM

Ugh, what a fight. No tool access, corrosion, stock junk in the way that I had forgotten about because it has been so long since I had a stock Tbird(and never a column shift car before).

But I won

BlueBird

Reply #89 – January 20, 2019, 08:50:45 AM

These are the worst.

Are you reusing that for now?