Oops I'm doing it again....I lost my head...

Thursday:.....I don't remember...that was a long time ago on this project....!

Friday: Couldn't avoid it....time to install the ZF!!! Something else that is hard to avoid....scratching up the paint trying to get a ZF into the back of a Mangusta! I will need to spend a little time with the teeny brush and some paint...........ugh! It was tough, but then I was the lone ranger on this one...no extra hands or eyeballs...

I didn't take any pictures pulling the ZF out...and couldn't remember exactly how I did it....sheesh this project is taking a long time!!! Again used seat belts....tipped the engine up as far as it would go (remove headers for more clearance!!!!)

 


 


 

Tried to go in from the side again, like we did with the engine but in the end, going straight in from the rear worked out best.
 

Just a tad nose up allows you to drop it in place, nose facing the left AC mount, and then rotate it clockwise into position while lowering...trying not to get tangled up in the LH steel brake line, or the frame, or the ladder bar, or the AC condensor, or the rear valance...... Setting it close to the lower two mounting holes, HEAVY towel on the crossmember...tip the nose of the input shaft into position and then jack and lift and push....and voila!
 

It should be noted that if your clutch disc isn't lined up properly...it will not be half as easy....as this was.....!!! I got real lucky, splines lined up and she slid right into place. Threw on the retaining nuts and dinked around with the rear mount for the rest of the night.

Saturday: worked on rear ZF mount. Needed bolts so took a trip to Orchard Supply for good grade 5 stuff....ended up with some overkill grade 8's for the center two bolts, because they had more "step" on them, and also got some 3" 3/8" bolts to use on the end two mounts, along with my unpatented frame stiffener modification. (Which I forgot to take a picture of...but I think I posted way back in the early pages of this adventure!)

A pair of stainess steel O2 sensor bungs and plugs showed up in the mail! Figured since I was welding...may as well put a pair of these in the tail pipes just after the header flange.... Could aid in tune up and performance tuning on the chassis dyno!

Installed the half-shaft assys. NOTE: with your wheels hanging suspended (frame on jackstands) do not be alarm if all of a sudden your wheels seem to bind at 180 degree intervals.... What is happening, is that your half shaft ends are binding against the ends of the u-joints. One side does it on this car, the other doesn't...go figure..... Once you put the car back down, you will not have this problem....or at least you shouldn't!

Once the half shafts were firmly in place, I installed the clutch slave cylinder, but of course had to take it back out because I couldn't get enough adjustment out of the rod, because some of the threads got buggered up...pulled the rod out, chased the threads with a tap, greased it all up again, and put it all back in place!

Installed the roll pin back into the shifter shaft, and installed the ground strap to the rear of the ZF trans and to the frame.

Started trying to fit hoses and figured out that when I got the last two hoses to try (for connecting the bottom of the Y-pipe to the frame pipe) that I didn't have my glasses along....so ended up with 1.5" hoses instead of 1-3/8"!!!!

Sunday sunday sunday!!! Sorry...drag races are happening up at Sears Point....couldn't resist!

Played with hoses today! I hit the Kragens with my old hoses to return, and my old hoses from the car...my glasses, 6" steel rule, and a tape measure for anything over 6"....

Found a Gates #22185 hose of the proper 1-3/8" diameter! I was able to get two hoses that will do the job...give me a spare to carry in the tool box... for only $8! The hoses I was returning ran $17-20!!!

I cut this apart, with the RH section as you see in the picture being my primary piece, and the LH section as my spare, but I found an errant slice in the area near where the clamp would go, under the label....so I wouldn't want to chance that.....of course once I cut the hose up I ruined my option of returning it...but for $8 I'll order another and be real fine with it! Hang it in the rafters!
 

My old lower hose is at the top of the picture....and can also serve as a spare for this too! I'm surprised at the difference in length of new to old...but then EVERYTHING but the actual Y-pipe and the under frame tube is different....gotta keep telling myself this...! Installed the "uncut" piece in the car...one hose to go! (Ordered another potential for the water pump hose.....but the flex hose I have may work in a pinch.....read that as "requires trimming prior to installation.....")

Something else to note in the picture above...my solution for relocating the oil sender unit! This piece is donated from a Boss 302 parts book. Cars with power steering and a Boss 302 needed more room in the area....so this was the solution. Mounted it up with a 5/16" bolt to the front of the head and it came out nicely! Cost me a Ben Franklin to do it....but all I had to do was pick up the phone to National Parts Depot (Mustang parts+++) and it magically appeared at my front step two days later, already put together..... (I tried looking for the fittings to do this....but gave up....I wanted to finish the car, not manufacture everything needed....)

 

It will clear the valve cover just fine, and everything else...... Nice clean installation that perhaps others of you could use as well!

Here's why....
 

You cannot see the oil line in this picture, but with the fuel pump, the oil sender extension AND the oil filter all in there....it's tight! This car had an oil filter remotely mounted.....so I never had problems previously! But since the threads in the remote adapter weren't threaded deep enough for this engine insert, I have left it out for now and will change filters with the large mess that everyone else has......!!!!!

 

As a result of the remote filter...I never was aware of how tight things are there...including even getting the oil filter up near the engine! The filter would not physically fit between the oil pan and the frame rail, until I unclipped the vacuum hard line from the rail and moved it just out of the way, as you can just make out in the second picture above.

Took care of a few things on my "Don't Forget List"!!! Tightened lower shock bolts, motor mount bolts (to engine), and the top clamp on the vacuum hose to my bent up steel line. Still have a few things to do, but that's OK as long as I have them written down!

Installed some heat shield to the back of the firewall door to replace that garpy crap that DeTomaso used for water collection....I mean insulation.....

Dug out my sway bar and set that in place. Due to all the bolt length and orientation changes due to the attempt at a simple frame stiffener, I will need a spacer between the frame and the sway bar clamp to raise the bar to clear. I checked this out before, and I think 1/2" will work, but will check again and see if I can get away with 3/8"! That is where I left off this evening.....looking for suitable scraps of material or a willing donor!!! None found yet...but it's gotta be around here somewhere....!!!

Ciao!
Steve

The march continues.... (from two days ago..no work last night or tonight due to grandkids at the house, and a mystery clutch malfunction in the 68 Cougar (son's car now..) plus taking the wife out to dinner and a street dance sorta thing...pay the dues....!)

Called about header coatings, Caps of Fresno appears to have a high temp (1700 degrees) version that uses titanium...or that's what they call it.... instead of aluminum, which melts at 1300 degrees and can then separate....so for no additional cost, they can do the higher temp job! With blasting the old electrostatic coating off of the headers I want to use, they can still turn around the job in 7-10 days! Great!!! More later..

I worked on the sway bar spacers next...
 

These are cut from the same 1/2" x 1" bar stock that I made my prototype chassis stiffener bar from.... Cut to length and drilled with 3/8" holes. I have not yet beautified the rough edges on the ends....

I also ordered some smaller diameter headed 12 point 1-1/4" long bolts....as trying to use the full headed bolts causes the side of a socket to contact the ladder bar and may or may not fit down onto the bolt! I have seen many a socket head (allen head) bolt used just for this reason! These things look like 12 point header bolts....for lack of a better description. Will post a pic once I get them....more special order from Fastenal! I also ordered a 5" long button head bolt to try was an alternator pivot bolt to perhaps help with my belt interference issue.....

Back to sway bar spacers....

Installed left and right....I gotta be getting close...
 

Close up:
 

 

Last thing I did the other night was to get down my original air cleaner and check the fit! That was the goal of all of this work after all!

Well, it looks real good....
 

But success is fleeting and not to be found here..... The air tube horns are about 1/2 proud on either side, and the center of the air cleaner would just contact the shield by 1/8-1/4", if you are to believe that they would be flat... I used a level here to simulate flat....of the closed covers....

The carb stud also is proud by about 1/2 inch, but I could effectively deal with that in a creative sort of manner if I had to...

The long ending to this story will be to go back to my Performer intake with a shorter carb mounting pad.... I have the manifold but it needs the ports enlarged, and the rear mount piece welded onto it... Installation is something that I don't see as being too large a deal now that I have been through everything else!!! But for now, we run the Performer and I dig out my old low profile air cleaner to get out of the garage and down the road a few miles!

The lower carb height will probably cause me to use a manual choke setup....which after looking at this...is probably what I will need to do with the Performer RPM intake that I have installed presently. Just too much stuff over near that pesky center bearing area of the shaft bracket!

....I thought my measurements were more foolproof....so much for RevA!!!

Gonna go post some header pic's in a new post!
Ciao!
Steve

Wednesday the 28th.....

Time for some pictures!

Last week got detoured a couple of days working on a clutch job....

Those aren't DeTomaso parts!
 

Son's car came up with a lame clutch pressure plate...same type as used in the Goose! Couldn't find anything in terms of a smoking gun as to what failed....aargh! A new pressure plate seems to have solved the problem...but also fixed some minor naggy issues, like bending the equalizer bar to clear the shorty headers, and welded up some things that were starting to show their age!!! (and bad gas welding skills of the author....I love my MIG welder...!)
 

Found these exhaust flange gaskets which seem to be a perfect match to the flanges that I got with the new mufflers from Mangusta Int'l, which fit my old Hall headers. I may need to enlarge the holes to fit the pattern, but there is plenty of meat to allow this. There is a raised sealing portion and it is metal jacketed on both sides, so no messy "header" type gasket battles! About $4 each. Sorry for the crummy picture...camera just isn't what it used to be...!
 

Traded in my little heater hose that goes from the water pump outlet to the hose on the firewall. Fits very nicely! About $7
 

Installed!
 

Received my new lower hose which connects the water pump to the lower chassis tube. Cost $20.
 

Needed to do just a tad of trimming to get things to line up and not bind.
 
I took one inch off of the lower end. It should be noted that this hose is 1-3/4" at the top and 1-3/8" at the bottom, just what doctor DeTomaso ordered!!!! (last hose was 1.5" at the bottom and required lots of hose clamp tightening!

Tools that made the job MUCH easier!!! You physically cannot get into some of these areas to tighten up hose clamps....but these little buggers saved the day!
 

Here is a shot of one area where the screwdriver just wouldn't cooperate!
 
I won these at one of the PCNC Christmas party raffles and I am beginning to like them a lot! I had a version of Craftsman wrenches, but the gear teeth were "more coarse" where these have more teeth and offer more ratcheting for less movement! (Finer the teeth, the more work gets done in tight places!)

Glued the valve cover gaskets to the valve covers, installed the V/C studs into the heads and started working on the coolant overflow tank....which is where things went awry last night!

I was mistakenly thinking that "all I needed to do" to complete the cooling system was to slap the overflow tank in the bracket and connect two hoses....Not to be! The clamp which is supposed to secure the tank to the firewall bracket, is about 1/4" to long on each side. I had wrapped the tank in some 1/16-1/8" thick foam tape, but it was not enuf..... SO, gonna scrounge up some thin tin and make myself a new one!!! Seems to be the only option.... OR do like the PO did, and wrap it with VERY thick foam tape....which was super ugly.... I'll use tie-wraps before I do that....!

Spent tonight doing PCNC bookkeeping in prep for meeting tomorrow night. Will try and order up some material for exhaust hangers yet before I hit the rack...internet never closes!!!

Steve

Saturday,

In the "some progress is better than no progress dept"....

I found some 1/16" thick by 1.5" wide aluminum stripping at Orchard Supply Hardware (didn't have steel...)  to fab up a new coolant tank strap. Came out very nice....we'll see how well it holds up!

 

With this piece installed and hoses connected (excepting a hose from the tank to an overflow catch can....) I do believe that my cooling system is sealed and ready to receive liquid!!!!

In the "going nowhere fast dept"....

My alternator mounting and belt interference still continues to be a PITA!

I took possession of a new 4.5" long 3/8" "button head" bolt to try instead of the 10mm hex head bolt... While it appears to clear the belt now, the slightly smaller diameter of the fully threaded bolt, and the fact that my alternator spacer is about .025" shorter than it should be, allows the alternator to rock all over the place.....much more than it used to. I can fix this with a new spacer, or a .025" thick spacer for the spacer....more lathe time! Perhaps I'll shop it out to my dad.....

I also am going to try and get a real metric bolt and cut the head down on it. I think I can do an abbreviated button head treatment to it and perhaps win! Leave just enough hex on it for a socket or a wrench to grab it... I found the bolts in the Fastenal catalog, just need to order one...

In one last "you've got to be kidding" dept, to top this all off, I had installed my new ginchy valve covers (not yet revealed in photos) earlier in the day, thinking that all is well....can finally seal up the engine....WRONG! In order for me to remove this alternator bolt, I must remove the RH valve cover now! THAT was NOT a part of the plan.....valve covers may hit the scrap pile later....we'll see.....go back to a modified version of my initial idea....but not an emergency issue, nor is the alternator belt thing as I have options.... Put this crap on my "fix next winter" list....

Have a great day! I think I'm going to replace that fuel line from the tank to the pump. In thinking about it over the past few weeks, the stuff was starting to get hard from the additives in the fuel....and since I have no fuel in the tank, I have new fuel line, and the car is up on blocks....I may as well do it!

Steve

Monday...

In the close but no cigar dept, a couple of things....

I think my exhaust hanger strap is too long...
 

This is the 2" wide by 1" thick material I got from McMaster-Car. Will need to do some bandsaw work on it! Where's my bandsaw.....

These hanger reinforcements were "supposed" to be the correct part over the phone.....duh!

 

Turns out that it appears that the Panteras used the same reinforcement and also tubular spacer....but no one has piped up and said that the spacers were used on the Goose yet....Daryl?

8-31-10 update: Was looking through the Goose parts book, and found the hangers and reinforcements listed on page 52, two lengths of hangers specified from Fiat 1300/1800 models, and 16 of the little reinforcements and 8 steel sleeves as being sourced from the 1300 model Fiat!

Just waiting for headers!

I'm a little concerned about the radiator cap on the coolant tank...seems a little tall....but it doesn't appear to have been replaced either.....I do not want it to contact the shield and hose it all up!

Posting some jack pic's over in the "tool kit" thread.

Cheers!
Steve

Whoo HOO!!!

Wife just called me at work and informed me that I have some freshly coated headers waiting for me on the front step!

I know what I am doing tonite!!!

....I'll try and remember to take some pic's....before I put them on....


OK, unpacked the newly coated headers and boy were they packed! Came to me in a Hooker header box! The 1700 degree finish is about as grey as the background of this text. It is not the bright and shiny aluminum looking finish that you see so often. I had heard that the 1300 degree coating can lift when in tight confines.....well, you cannot get much tighter than a Mangusta! Cost was no different....and I do NOT want to be in here again any time soon dorking around with headers!

Insert pictures here:

RH header:
 

LH Header:
 

LH mods at front two pipes to clear upper control arm.
 

Underside of front tube on LH header to allow more clearance of frame rail!
 

More misc:
 

 

This is a deeper grey finish as I said above. Sorta grows on you! Is very resistant to staining and grubby finger prints!!! Pretty tough, but can be scratched....oops!
 

Of course since nothing can go smoothly, and why would this part of the job be any different....when I did the original fitting, I did not have my studs for the heads yet. Using aluminum heads, I figured I'd use studs to save the threads in the heads. I used a gasket and some short header bolts to see how the holes looked and removed material where it was in excess. (THESE ARE THE WORST FREAKING HEAD FLANGES THAT I HAVE EVER SEEN!!!! THE BUILDER MUST HAVE USED CRAYONS TO MAKE HIS PATTERNS.....) OK, that rant aside, these things REALLY suck....I mean how many times has Ford changed the small block exhaust pattern in 30 years? Correct answer would be: ZERO! NONE! NADA! I digress....

SO the headers didn't just slide on.....I filed and I ground with a carbide ball, and eventually they slipped right on like they were supposed to! This time, I dragged an old head out of the shed and used my extra 4 studs to test fit on the bench!!! Wasn't fool proof, but I was able to see better, areas that may be an issue...but still needed to trial fit the RH header about a dozen times before they cooperated!

I also ran into a couple of the studs that were tooooooo long. I could only get 1.75"or so studs, with 5/8" of coarse threads to go into the heads and I think a 1" fine threaded section to hold the headers on. I knew I may need to shorten some, but I wasn't going to get too anal and shorten them all..... (If I had my own metal lathe, my name would be asshole...

) SO, I had to shorten 2 or 3 on the RH side, and 1 on the LH side due to the angle that the tubes were welded in.....a cut off wheel, and a thread chasing file were all I needed to make this a very short job! I ran nuts onto the stud before I cut the bulk off, and that way, when removing the nuts, they chase the material back into position...clean up with the thread file and off ya go!

I also had to do some minor malletizing on the area adjacent to the studs so that the whippy dippy lock washer devices I picked up would fit, but in most cases it was due to being unable to get the 12pt reduced size nut in place. Conventional header bolts probably would have fit by a few hairs.... I eventually figured out that if I could get the nuts in place and finger snug, I could use the largest screwdriver that I owned, with a nice smooth flat blade, and slide it down between the nut and the header pipe. A few raps with the hammer and I moved the metal just enough for my small headed wrench to fit properly. Large headed wrench will probably be a no go..... (Some day I may look back and curse myself for all of this 12pt hardware and for being so anal....OK I kick my butt all the time for doing that already...nothing new!)

So, a couple of small scratches near the bolt/nuts on the tubes, but I'm not worried about that. Wouldn't be the first car I've seen with super nice finishes on their headers.....with all sorts of damage up by the bolts from sockets and what not!!! I plan on fab'ing up some stock type exhaust shields to "suggest" what the originals sort of looked like...which should hide these transgressions anyway! That is a later job....much later.....

I looked at my muffler to header fit, as I was thinking I would need a couple of 45's welded together to get an "S" shaped inlet pipe to the mufflers, but it looks now like the "kick over" will only be about the width of the pipe (1-7/8" OD pipe), so I think that just leaving it straight will be fine. We'll see once I get to fab'ing up hanger straps etc.

Oh, and the reinforcements and inserts arrived from Panteras by Wilkinson, and they look great! Just like my originals only shinier!

Gotta take the wife out for dinner tonite....to celebrate 26 years of slavery..I mean marriage! Anniv. was Wed, but I was out in the garage working....I took her to lunch earlier in the day, so I actually did pay attention to her..(!!!)and tonight was better for dinner due to a live band in the square downtown right next to this little Italian restaurant.....go hang out until it cools off!

Ciao!
Steve

Just a quick post....

Hanger fabbing!

I took my big piece of rubber stock and used my buddies band saw to cut the short pieces to length. Rubber does not cut easily with a narrow toothed blade... Holding the cutting line "open" a tad to take the pressure off of the blade worked well. Free cutting was best, as I tried using a fence but it would just bind up. Pulling the little 1/4" flap away from the blade helped as I was narrowing the 2" pieces down to 1-3/4".

Marked up some holes based upon where the reinforcement pieces went.

 

Using a 1/2" wood type bit with no lube.

 

Slower RPMs worked well, backed up by drilling into a piece of wood. Trimmed boogers off with an Exacto knife.
 

Stuffed in the small metal spacers.

 

Dorked around with heights and marked the slots of the muffler brackets. Slots allow for slight height adjustments, or you can just make them to fit to the top of the slot.....I aimed for the middle...

Rear hangers are pretty much vertical. Front hangers deviate...

 

Tried to make things close to level.
 

These cars are not symmetrical...
Fab'ing up the inlet pipes to the mufflers. Left side went fairly easily. Right side was a bugger...ended up Frankenstein'ing the pipe..

 

Franky!
 

Mufflers are off at the welder getting the stainless steel welded up where I had to Frankenstein the RH inlet pipe... I tack welded everything in place.....let them pretty it up and put in the O2 bungs for me.

Tomorrow! List grows shorter! If I don't get it to smoke test Tuesday, Wed will be smoke and fire! OK, at least turn on the ignition, check for smoke, put gas in the tank and carb, and see what happens!!!

Ciao! More pics later.....it's late!
Steve

Well,

This was supposed to be the final post! Got the car running tonight, but not yet drivable!

Worked on finishing up the final bits on my list....
Cleaned up the muffler outlet areas in the body and installed some heat barrier..."just in case".

 

Picked up the mufflers from the welder earlier at lunch. Came out very nice!

 

Fitted up the mufflers to the headers, tightened up all the bolts. Figured out earlier in the week that I shorted myself 6 of the little reinforcements for the muffler straps so ordered them from Wilkinson earlier in the day. Should be here by Thurs or Friday, but don't need them for now...
They look really good!!! Sorry, no pic's it was dark!

Son helped me put on the RH valve cover, spark plug wires, and fill the cooling system with water. Put some gas in the tank a little in the fuel bowls, a couple more quarts of oil in the pan and took the car down off of the 4" wood blocks it had been sitting on! Wow, back on the ground!

Fired up right away, but a fuel leak at the rear bowl inlet (my custom made transfer tube) had me scrambling to tighten that a few times....it wouldn't seal...but eventually convinced it that it wanted to seal!

Was running retarded, so tweeked the distributor a hair clockwise and she then idled up and smoothed right out! Warmed up nicely as one would expect with a new engine!!!

Ran it for a few minutes and then shut her down....only to find a water leak out the front of the water pump!!!??? HUH!

Found an extra mounting hole (probably for the alternator adjusting bracket when installed in a front engine config.....) that was open into the main water outlet! Now this the same water pump I was using before, so this is a mystery!!!! I know I didn't plug this hole previously! Or at least I don't believe I did!!!

As it cooled down, I dug around for a short 5/16"-18 bolt, lock washer and flat washer, and some Form-a-gasket and tightened it into the hole. Refilled the system with water, bled it again...and fired it up! Made a lot of difference as now the temp stabilized right away at the t-stat value..... fans on, no air into radiator ie external fan.

Here is a shot of the plugged hole. It is the center recessed bolt head in the center of the pic!
 

Ran the engine for about 10 minutes or so more, up to temp and then some, still haven't set timing, but keeping the rev's fairly low yet...rev's nicely very crisp throttle response with the Holley pretty much out of the box! Have not messed with idle mixture screws yet either!

Shut it down to clean up for the night...so I can get into work early....ugh! Checked under the car and found a tragedy!

The gulf coast has nothing on me!!! Texas tea...30W flavor!
 

Something is amiss out rear of the engine. Either I totally pulled a boner mistake and forgot the rear main seal (single piece get's installed last....) when it was on the engine stand, or my one piece silicon oil pan seal got bunched up somewhere...or there is something amiss with the crank oil seal surface.....

Enough for tonite, took pic's, tossed kitty litter on the evidence, and closed down the garage.

The saga continues.... But it's gotta be something simple....!

Ciao!
Steve

PS: I hadta look! Checked the gasket set box where I had tossed all of my extra gaskets from intake manifold fitting etc, and didn't find the rear seal. So at least I put that in.... Perhaps not the proper direction, but I believe I was cautioned about that, and I double checked the shop manual too.... damn! That would have been too easy! Ok, not that easy to fix...but easy to figure out! Crap!

OK, let's just say for all practical purposes, this was a TV show, with say Chip Foose in it, the cast is assembling an exotic "make over car" and one of the mechanics forgot to install a seal somewhere.....since they were going to tear the car apart again anyway before final assembly, it really didn't matter much. Just a PITA!

EDIT 04/06/20    I built the new engine in 2008 and it didn't get around to installing it for two years, as the car was running.....   When I tore the old 'Bird engine down and after the initial assembly,  I left the rear oil seal hanging around on my work bench for some time as a reminder to get a new one.  (Well that didn't work....... !!!)  I eventually got tired of working around it, and rather than tie it to the engine/stand/etc as a reminder, I tossed it in the garbage telling myself that "I would remember this!"  HAH!!!  How we lie to ourselves sometimes!!!   

If you scroll back up to my post on 7/12/10 (page 4 of posts)  the top picture of one of the posts has the rear engine view as installed finally in the car.   You can just barely make out there is no seal.....    This is a low res pic, but on my higher resolution original I could see that I had no seal installed!!!    At the time, this was consuming so much brain time that I couldn't get to sleep, so I came out to the computer and cruised thru all my old pictures until I found that picture and realized what I hadn't done!!!!

I've reposted a better pic with no seal for your convenience!

End of edit!  Cheers!

Seal not in place:   BIG GAP there! DUH!

That's my story and I'm stickin' to it!

So now that I have torn every thing apart and installed the rear main seal, as my last task in the engine rebuild....I've started the reassembly process.

Seal in place:
 

Local shop recommends a fine coating of sealer on the outside of the seal. My 91 shop manual references a section on installing this seal several times....there is no section! (21-1...)

Patience, a 1" steel punch of sorts, and a plastic mallet was all that was needed to put the seal in place. A thin coat of oil on the inside seal area...and tap it in flush with the rear of the main cap.

After de-oiling all of the flywheel, block plate, bellhousing, flywheel bolts with solvent, I put that all back together.

Flywheel bolts got "The Right Stuff" on the threads.....(found the ARP thread sealer with Teflon later....), Ford Tech says used RTV and torque to spec.....75-85ft-lbs.

Torqued the pressure plate bolts to 15ft-lbs on the aluminum flywheel. Used a conventional alignment tool for the disc, which proved effective as trans slipped right in place! No muss or fussing with mis-alignment...

Here is a shot of the front of the ZF with the throwout bearing in place.
 

A few more shots of the ZF going in. Tipped the rear of the engine up (disconnected exhaust at the flanges). It should be noted that this time, I removed the rear ladder bar. This gave me a LOT more room to work with to get the trans in place. Should have done that the first time!!!! Excuse me, I meant during the "trial run"!
 

"Easy does it" is in order running the engine hoist. A few towels to keep paint on the metal bits...and the fancy sling made up of old seat belts! Works great!
 

The seat belt sling actually allowed me to lift up on the rear of the trans to give me a slight nose down attitude. Setting the towel, folded up a few times, on the rear spare tire support worked great. Just have to watch out for brake lines etc.... basically everything!
 

Lower real slow, check to see you are not hanging up on the studs and bending them!
 

Almost there....slight pushing and pulling and minor up/down with the hoist and it slipped right in place with no opposition! Wow! That is a new concept!
 

And here is where our hero left off tonight.....ZF is sitting in place (on a 2x4 on top of the cross member) and is bolted snugly up to the bellhousing!

 

 

Tomorrow I can finish final tightening of everything else, reinstall the crossmember, ladder bar, sway bar, exhaust bolts, axle connections, speedo cable, shift linkage... adjust the shifter mo' better, and may be see if I can get out of the damned driveway with my new lower oil pan!!!!

Time for some sleep so I can get my butt home early to dive back into this!

Ciao!
Steve