Reply to "anyone have vintage engine compartment photos to share?"

8MA 510 was once owned by Jim Kuehne in N. CA but was sold 2 yrs ago; can't remember where it went. Maroon paint, I think. Steve Liebenow would know where it is.

On aluminum ZF sideplates, they interchange & appear identical to aluminum-painted cast iron ones, so it takes a magnet to tell for sure. Mine are designed to fit the sand-cast 2-hole bellhousing with the dog-leg-lugs that tied into lugs on the bellhousing with 4 extra bolts. I don't use the extra lugs. Story is, early ZFs had all-aluminum side & end plates, but when Ford was testing the ZF with 427s for Mark 2 GT-40s & Le Mans, the cases 'heated up' under long, hard 200 mph runs with big-block torque; the aluminum side plates expanded, reducing side bearing pre-loads diff failure. So to counteracts this potential racing problem, ZF changed the side and end plates to stiffer cast iron, in the same design. Ford never trusted ZF and ultimately used other transaxles in the Mk 2s anyway. Later, ZF dropped the troublesome dog-leg-lugs from the side plates.
On the street behind a 351-C, aluminum side and end plates cause zero problems & remove 15 lbs total wt. In 2-3 hr runs at way-non-legal highway speeds, our ZF lube barely gets to 180F- almost enough to purge condensation out of the cases but not near enough for a diff cooler.