Droppin' in the Drivetrain

Today was one of Lauren's weekends to work in December so I packed up Petey (since he had two seizures last night) and took him on over to my parents house to do some more work on the Mustang. He seemed pretty content sitting out in the sun while I worked.

This was the day that we were going to join together the 302 motor and T5 transmission and slip it into the car. The first thing we had to do was set up the hoist and take the motor off of the engine stand. Once we did that, we pulled out the transmission to get it for instillation. We had to install the pilot bearing before doing anything else so we cleaned out the hole in the back of the motor and applied some grease to work it in. We then set the engine spacer plate onto the back of the motor and then bolted on the flywheel. Once we had the flywheel on, we were able to mount the clutch and pressure plate which went pretty smooth.

Newly threaded bellhousing

Next we looked through buckets of bolts to find the bolts we would need to join the bell housing to the back of the motor. Once we found the six bolts we needed, the bell housing went on fairly quickly It took us a while to find the right sized bolts to hold the transmission body onto the housing because we were searching for a bolt that didn't exist. The previous owner of the housing must have put the wrong sized bolts in and stretched out the threads causing the ones that were supposed to be used to fit loosely and the next higher size bolt to be too big. Our only option was to re-thread the bell housing.

Bolting up the transmission to the 302

Once we tapped the four holes we were able to join the transmission body to the motor. You can see me trying to put in one of the bolts through the transmission and into the bell housing. We had tried to fill the trans with fluid, but failed to realize that the hole for the spedo-cable allowed most of the fluid we put in to leak out. I'll have to look into which cable it needs (1966 Mustang of 1986-1992) before trying to fill it again.

When we raised the drivetrain using the engine hoist and lowered the front of the car to make sure we had enough clearance to move the engine into the engine compartment. It barely scrapped its way in taking off a little black paint off of the oil pan, but it made it in. We had to put it in sideways with the rear of the transmission pointing towards the drivers side and the engine entering the compartment from the driver's side. Once it was over the radiator support, we lowered it in and began setting the motor mounts.

My dad did most of the work under the car by trimming the T5 conversion cross member to clear the e-brake bracket. He also had to drill the cross member because the hole on the passenger's side didn't perfectly line up with the hole in the body. While he did that, I greased and slid on the harmonic balance and put on the valve covers. Once we had the the transmission mounted, we were pretty much done for the night. I tried to wipe down the engine compartment since it was getting dusty. I also touched up some of the brake lines that had lost some of their paint.

Top view of the shifter coming through the floor

Although the T5 works great in older Mustangs, the shifter doesn't line up perfectly with the hole in the floorboard. Sometimes the hole needs to be trimmed in order for it to work properly. I think we got lucky with my car because it seems to just barely fit. Once we install the driveline we may find that we need to trim it, but for now it works. The picture to the right shows that it is closer to the front passenger's side corner (as it fits in all older Mustangs).

Motor all bolted up!

The 'Stang is coming along nicely. I'll probably need to spend some money on it now to buy things like a radiator, alternator, battery, distributor, spark plug wires, water pump, hoses, air filter, oil, etc, etc. For now its looking beautiful and I'm excited to get it running soon.

T-5 Info

For some reason, it took me a while to find the ID tag on the T-5 that I purchased from Romeo in Los Angeles on June 30, 2009, but I finally found it while cleaning it a couple of months ago. He told me that the transmission was from a 1988 5.0 which could very well be correct since the ID number places it as being built for a 1986 1/2-1989 Mustang 5.0. The input shaft spins freely in all gears, but we still don't know the real condition of it since we haven't actually used it yet. We'll see how it works once we get the clutch cable installed and the motor fired up. Below is a chart with the gear ratio details and torque rating:

In Summary:

Max Torque= 265 ft/lbs
1st Gear= 3.35
2nd Gear= 1.93
3rd Gear= 1.29
4th Gear= 1.00
5th Gear= 0.68
Reverse= 3.15

The transmission now has a new bearing retainer seal and rear seal so its not as if I didn't do anything to the transmission after purchasing it. I have the T-5 conversion yoke for it because I bought it some time in 2002 or 2003 when I still had my first mustang. I intended to do a T-5 conversion, but then decided to sell the car due to high maintenance costs and high gas prices. I also had the cross member from around the same time period. It saved me from spending an extra $175 or so. If only I had purchased the clutch cable kit back then, I would have saved myself from spending $200 now.

Mastering the Brakes

Yes, I finally carved out some time to work on the 'Stang and I plan on making some more time to do that in the near future. On Monday I took some time off from work since my dad was on vacation and we finished installing the brake system. I had to pull the master cylinder off the car since it was beginning to rust due to recent rain. I cleaned it up and painted it black to match the rest of the engine compartment and then re-installed it on the firewall. In order to get the master working, I had to cut, re-flange and bend all but one of the brake lines, but by the time I was done everything fit correctly. We did have some trouble with leaking lines at first, but it was simply a matter of tightening the fittings at the master, proportioning valve or brake hoses. Together we bled out the lines so that there was no air in the system and we now have fully functioning brakes (with the exception of the emergency brake which can't be hooked up until the transmission cross-member is installed).


Once the brakes were finished, we set the intake manifold onto the motor and torqued down the bolts at 23 ft-lbs per the specifications book. We used the same manifold that I had on my first Mustang which was a four-barrel Edelbrock Performer RPM . We used FelPro intake gaskets and some new silicone gaskets for the front and back of the intake along with some extra gray silicone for good measure.


The next step will be installing the engine and transmission which are ready to go. My dad said that he would take some time to put the motor on the engine hoist and join the T-5 transmission and clutch setup to the motor so that we can just drop it all in at the same time. I have both motor mounts and the transmission mount ready to install so it'll be nice to actually use them. Not sure when we're going to drop the heart of the car in, but I would imagine that it is going to be soon.

Fabrication

In order to mount the rear brake hose I had to take the existing bracket, cut it, mold it and re-weld it back onto the underside of the car. That took most of the 1 1/2 hours I had to work on the Mustang yesterday. Now that Lauren isn't in class on Tuesday and Wednesday, I really don't have much time to spend on the car anymore. She constantly tells me to take my time and not rush home to get there when she arrives from work, but I don't see her much as it is, so I don't want to take away from our potential time together. There really isn't much else to report other than I bought some transmission fluid (ATF) to fill up the T5.

Takin' a Brake

Today I installed:

...the rear brake lines across the rear differential, the rear brake hose....







...the master cylinder and...














...the front brake hoses.





As I've mentioned before, I still need to buy front brake lines to shape to fit the modified dual bowl master cylinder from a 1967 Mustang. I'm also going to need to modify the mounting bracket for the rear brake hose since its from a 1967 Mustang and would normally mount to a different location than my '66. Minor fabrications, but they'll still take some time.


I'm spent on Mustang money for now, but once some more overtime or DJing money comes in, I'll be able to get the front brake lines, pilot bearing and shocks. We'll be dropping in the motor as soon as I get the brake line ran across the firewall...its coming together.

I Can See Clearly Now

This past week hasn't been a good week to work on the Mustang. I did stop by on Wednesday to do a little bit, but ultimately was only able to work on it for about 2 1/2 hours. I took out the passenger side wing window and regular window and then used some rubbing compound and a buffer to polish both regular side windows and the rear glass. It looks like the rear window has a lot of pits on the inner part of it. I know that it sat in a body shop for a while so my dad thought that maybe sand blasting caused these pits to form. I am faced with two options 1) Tint the windows or 2) replace the back glass. I'll probably go with the first option since this is California and it gets mighty hot in the summers. Tinting the windows would be best done while they are out of the car anyways.

My brake parts were delivered to my parents house on Thursday so I'm going to go over this afternoon to install them. I'll still need the front hard brake lines to run from the master to the proportioning valve and then to the front hoses and rear line.

At least the windows are looking crystal clear now!

Check Out the Oil My Cadillac Spills...

I finally broke down and bought the emergency brake lever and bar for both sides from Mustang Village in San Bernardino, Ca today. After much searching and reviewing of old photos, I determined that the 8" rearend that I purchased never had those parts. It cost me $54 (including tax) to pick up the parts, but it allowed me to move forward with the installation of the rear brakes.

On my way over to my parents house this Saturday, I also stopped by Kragen to buy a 1967 Mustang master cylinder since it has separate reservoirs for the front and rear brakes leaving me less susceptible to complete brake failure if the master gives out or if I have a leak in a line on the front or the rear. Unfortunately it came with the push rod installed and in attempting to get it out, I broke the new master cylinder--there goes $45 down the drain. I didn't bother to take a picture of that since it was frustrating enough to have to look at it without having to be reminded of that frustration whenever referring back to this blog.

Once the rear brakes were on, the only tires I had to put on the back were my mom's stock 2007 Cadillac CTS rims. I was surprised to see that they fit and had enough backspacing for the '67 rear in my '66. I have three different kinds of rims on the car,The spare on the front left, my brothers old rim on the front right, and my mom's CTS rims on both sides of the rear. It's quite a sight to see. The car is still in the air until I have the brakes fully hooked up which will still require new hoses all the way around, a new master cylinder, and hard lines on the front. I have ordered all of those parts with the exception of the hard lines which will have to be customer made due to the dual master which these cars didn't have in 1966. I'll need to buy some straight tube and mold with with my dad's tube bender tools.