1983 Fox body station wagon project car. V8/5sp swap (Page 4 of 4)
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Originally Posted By NWJohnny: I really like those wheels. Idk if Weldcraft is still around, but they were a company that would widen wheels. Would be great for a sleeper build. You could probably sand blast them and order some factory color paint for them- Ford sprayed all the damn aluminum wheels that color of silver for like 20 years lol. No need for all that. If you want to go wider, they are reproduced. https://lmr.com/item/LRS-279593/mustang-4-lug-turbine-wheel-15x9-79-93 I'll see how it hooks up after I put the posi rear end together for it. The shop who shortened my driveshaft did say it was on the thin side. Fine for around town and occasional tomfoolery. It would not hold up to frequent launches if I did much to improve the traction. |
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Some tires arrived at my house today. They were not the ones I ordered. Long story short, though. Through mass incompetence at every single layer of walmart, I got this set of tires for free. I went ahead and mounted them with my little tire setup and got them on the car. Thats when I discovered one of my new used center caps was cracked and won't stay on. Since the entire tire change was $0 out of pocket, I'll probably pony up for a new center cap. While I was at it, I used the toe plates and turn tables and whatnot to check the alignment. It was close enough, I just left everything like it was. I also ordered a pile of parts to build this rear end. Now that I've had a chance to drive around with the new drivetrain and the correct size tires, I decided I'm gonna try out the stock 2.73 gears from the GT rear end. In the fox cars with a manual transmission, 2.73:1 was the standard option and 3:08 was the free upgrade you can order the car with. My 7.5" rear end has the 3.08 in it. So now I know what the upgrade drives like. I can try out the 2.73 that came with the 8.8. If I don't like them, all it costed me to try them out was a couple quarts of oil, a bearing, and maybe a new pinion nut. I figure its worth that much just so I'll know. 
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Originally Posted By ScottsGT: My wife would drug me up, haul my ass out to the middle of the lake and tie cinder blocks to me and push me over the side. I’ve already caught her asking her friends for help if she ever needed it. LOL yours too huh? I'm gonna find a good one sometime and I reckon we'll just have to duke it out because while I don't feel the need to be the fastest guy on the property anymore, I will have a nice fox body with a decent 427 (or so) Windsor for "playtime".  I already have quite a few of the parts from when I used to race one. |
I won't be wronged. I won't be insulted. I won't be laid a-hand on. I don't do these things to other people, and I require the same from them
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Originally Posted By Hillbilly69: LOL yours too huh? I'm gonna find a good one sometime and I reckon we'll just have to duke it out because while I don't feel the need to be the fastest guy on the property anymore, I will have a nice fox body with a decent 427 (or so) Windsor for "playtime". I already have quite a few of the parts from when I used to race one. Yea, she gets all grumpy because I’ve spent about $50k on this one and I don’t drive it.  “It never leaves the garage! Why the hell do you need another?” Attached File Well there’s proof it left the garage. 
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Originally Posted By Hillbilly69: LOL yours too huh? I'm gonna find a good one sometime and I reckon we'll just have to duke it out because while I don't feel the need to be the fastest guy on the property anymore, I will have a nice fox body with a decent 427 (or so) Windsor for "playtime". I already have quite a few of the parts from when I used to race one. If you want to joint the fox wagon club, there's plenty of them around. One listed up in TN in pretty decent shape and a bunch of go-fast parts in it. I've already hurt a couple feelings out on the street with mine. As far as progress goes, I drove the car enough to get the tank mostly empty. Then I pulled the external fuel pump and moved it back as close as humanly possible to the tank. And I flipped the fuel inlet on the carb backwards so the line is not near the radiator. I'm not sure exactly how much that will help, because now it runs closer to the exhaust. Either way, the fuel pump is at the back where it can push instead of pull, and its away from all the heat. I'll see if that helps it out at all.  
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Welp, I rolled out of bed today and decided I felt like making progress on my rear end. I spread a bunch of crap all over the middle of the floor and got to it. The housing was already mostly stripped and degreased. I hit the critical surfaces in it with some break cleaner and scotchbrite. I cleaned up the pinion and carrier a bit. Then got the old bearings off them. Pressed on new bearings. Knocked the races in the housing. And got it all setup using a crush sleeve eliminator with shims. I ended up with 20in/lb of preload on the pinion bearing. Then I dropped the carrier in it, I used the original shims. Using those, I got the correct amount of preload and my backlash is 0.011", which is just inside the spec. When I ran a pattern on the gears, it looks good enough to me. I'm not sure if its the way the gears are cut for this 2.73 ratio or what. The pattern on both sides takes up most of the tooth. It looks like its centered up enough and not quite touching the crown or root. I think I'm gonna send it like it is. Its probably good enough for the grocery getter. I still need to pull the nut off the front to install the seal and stuff for real. Then I have the posi clutches, upper arm bushings, and axles bearings and seals and it should be about ready to party.       
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Today I knocked out just about all of what was left of the rear end. I put the oil slinger, seal, and new nut on the pinion. New clutch kit for the traction-lok. Axle bearings and seals. And then the bushings for the upper control arms. Those turned out to be the most pain in the ass part of the car so far. I had the special tool for removing/installing them. I had the angle grinder. And the air hammer. And the bigass impact gun. And the penetrating oil. They fought me for a good 4 hours. But I won. Usually I buy new control arms to avoid dealing with bushings. These ones are pressed into the rear end housing, so I couldn't really avoid them. I think about the only thing left for the rear end is my cover is derusting. Then I can paint it. And then its just whenever I get the itch to pull the car in to drop the rear end.   
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I've been following along in this thread and just wanted to say that I think it's a cool car for a daily and it ought to be a fun little ride with the 5 speed. I bought a 76 Nova last year. 87K, NO RUST which is unbelievable for an Ohio car, 250 inch 6 cylinder, factory air, factory power disc brakes and a stinking TH250. The plan is to LS swap it. I would have had it done but I got freaking cancer last year and had to deal with that first so I just drove the car around as it is. I've got a 6.0 LS and a 4L80E ready to go and am putting together the rest of the parts I'll need. I figure with a stock 6.0 and the overdrive it will be a good daily driver and that's what I'm after. A car I can drive every day that it doesn't snow.
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Originally Posted By unreformed66: I've been following along in this thread and just wanted to say that I think it's a cool car for a daily and it ought to be a fun little ride with the 5 speed. I bought a 76 Nova last year. 87K, NO RUST which is unbelievable for an Ohio car, 250 inch 6 cylinder, factory air, factory power disc brakes and a stinking TH250. The plan is to LS swap it. I would have had it done but I got freaking cancer last year and had to deal with that first so I just drove the car around as it is. I've got a 6.0 LS and a 4L80E ready to go and am putting together the rest of the parts I'll need. I figure with a stock 6.0 and the overdrive it will be a good daily driver and that's what I'm after. A car I can drive every day that it doesn't snow. Nova with a 6.0 is a good combination. Mines about 3 notches to racecar'd out to be a good daily driver. The heater lines are bypassed and there's no AC compressor. I did look at it briefly and I think maybe the sikky adapter stuff could work to get an AC in it. If you end up needing a 12 bolt rear end and want to make a drive, I got one here I've been stepping over for a couple years. We can probably figure something out. If the nova would have been a 4-door, I would have just used it as a starting point and subdued it a bit instead of this whole station wagon project. But one of the main boxes that needed checked was I needed usable back seats with their own doors for the grocery getter.   Today's little project on the greased turd was starting to replace some seals. I've had this box of weather strip, window channel, and beltline seals for a couple months. I wasn't really excited to screw with it, just cause its not as exciting as a big motor. I finally figured I'd get it over with. I got one of the back windows done and it came out pretty nice. The old window parts are dried up and breaking into a hundred pieces whenever you touch them. I also got in an aftermarket window defroster for the back glass. Back in the early '80s, a defroster was an option. I laid the kit out to see what's what. After I decide how I want to run the wiring, I'll take a stab at getting that installed. I guess the people who bought cars with manual windows also didn't check the box for the rear defroster. I got off lucky, though. Some people who ordered these didn't even check the box for the passenger side rear view mirror. At least I got one of those. 
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Originally Posted By unreformed66: Oh goody....weatherstripping. The only thing I hate worse is chasing electrical gremlins...lol. Nice Nova. Here's a picture of my project car the day I bought it. https://i.imgur.com/azmu1Eu.jpg" target="_blank">https://i.imgur.com/azmu1Eu.jpgBased on my experience this weekend, I'd rather do a dozen cars' worth of weather strip than even one more of those control arm bushings. |
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Another day, another window with new seals in it. I did one of the front ones today. Fucking previous owner got me. At some point, somebody decided they were gonna fix the window seals, but couldn't be bothered to track down the correct parts. The front windows had some horrible white putty goop in them. Its like extra sticky pipe dupe or white urethane or something. They used that to glue in strips they cut off an old rag. 75% of the time today was trying to scrape that bullshit out of the window track so the new seal can go in. I eventually got it half way decent. Whatever is left is just helping glue my seal in. When I was done, I went and looked and the other front window also got the goop-and-rag treatment. So that's something to look forward to. Every time I do a window, the car gets a little less rattly over the bumps and a little less breezy on the highway. Then I went out to check on my rear diff cover. I dont know if my evaporust went bad or just doesn't work well in the cold or what. The diff cover looks about as bad as it did when I put it in to soak the other day. I dumped that bullshit out and mixed up some of the DIY stuff I'm gonna find out if this stuff cares about it being cold outside. I'm running it with water straight out of the spigot. If it doesn't work, then at least I tried. And thats my excuse to buy some overpriced finned cover with ford logo bolts.  
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It looks like the rust remover doesnt care if its cold outside. Most of what's left on the cover is black and looks like paint. It cleaned up pretty well from how it came from the junk yard. And with no scrubbing outside of wiping it with some blue shop towels. I should probably try to get some sort of paint on it this weekend so it doesn't rust. I left it soaking some more till i get a chance to paint it. maybe some more of this black stuff will come off. This morning, I filled it up with gas again which let me calculate the fuel economy. It got 12.6mpg around town. The same sort of driving with the lackluster 3.8/AOD combo was 15.6mpg. That was with pre-halloween fuel. I think at least part of the drop I can blame on the winter blend fuel. Some of it I may get back when i swap the rear end. I'm thinking by the time I'm done screwing around with this thing, I'll be back up better than it was before even though It now has 3x the power.   
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The rear end swaperoo went off without too much drama. I started at 9:30am. By 3pm, I had the wheels back on it and filled up the rear end with fluid. I was able to leave the brakes completely attached to the car. Just pulled the axles out and unbolted the backing plates, then hung the drums up. Then i dropped the old rear end out and lifted the new one up into place. The only real surprise was the front bolts for the control arms. I swapped my lower control arms for some new ones. That gave me new bushings as well as the holes to mount my junk yard sway bar. The bolts for the front of the lower control arms were blocked by the mufflers. That cost me close to an hour screwing with the exhaust to get those bolts out and back in. Otherwise, it was fairly smooth sailing. I got to install the shocks that have been sitting on my floor since I bought them way back on page 1. I also did new spring isolators. Then all the bearings and seals in the rear. Bushings, clutches, c-clips, and even the little bolt for the cross pin are new from ford performance. The brake lines from the 7.5" work well enough with the 8.8" housing. The 8.8 lines have the tee in a different spot. Unfortunately, my test drive got cut short. I made a couple laps around the neighborhood without any bad sounds. Then my throttle started to hang. Something is up with the carb. The throttle only hangs with the engine running. When its turned off, there's lots of slop. When the engine is on, there is enough resistance that the return spring isn't strong enough. I disconnected the cable. Its definitely the carb itself. I guess thats next on the list. After I get that sorted, I can get this out on the highway to see how far off the speedometer is. Then figure out which gear I want to swap in it.    
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Originally Posted By unreformed66: You say there's lots of slop in the carb. Are you talking about worn throttle rod bushings or slop in the linkage or what? Hopefully it isn't worn bushings yet. The car's only had like 4 tanks of gas through it since I put the carb on it. There's a lot of play in the shaft in every direction when the engine is off. When I crank it up, there's not really any play. For shits and giggles, I adjusted the throttle cable to put more tension on the return spring. That made it strong enough to overcome the resistance in the carb's linkage. I think for now, I'll add another spring and roll with it. Its not running bad like there's a vacuum leak or anything. I just got back from a 25 mile test drive. The rear end works just like it was supposed to. No noises or smells out of it. It made the car 10% less of a racecar and more of a cruiser. The added sway bar and the limited slip rear end kinda make up for it a bit.
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Originally Posted By giantpune: Hopefully it isn't worn bushings yet. The car's only had like 4 tanks of gas through it since I put the carb on it. There's a lot of play in the shaft in every direction when the engine is off. When I crank it up, there's not really any play. For shits and giggles, I adjusted the throttle cable to put more tension on the return spring. That made it strong enough to overcome the resistance in the carb's linkage. I think for now, I'll add another spring and roll with it. Its not running bad like there's a vacuum leak or anything. I just got back from a 25 mile test drive. The rear end works just like it was supposed to. No noises or smells out of it. It made the car 10% less of a racecar and more of a cruiser. The added sway bar and the limited slip rear end kinda make up for it a bit. Was that carb new or has it been around a while or what? There shouldn't be much play at all in the throttle shaft. Something's fucky there. |
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Originally Posted By unreformed66: Was that carb new or has it been around a while or what? There shouldn't be much play at all in the throttle shaft. Something's fucky there. It was brand new. I agree that something's fucky. I've got lots of carbs and never had one do this. I'm probably not going to invest too much into it. This carb is a placedolder for a TBI. |
| As you well know lots of things can cause the throttle to hang. I've seen 4 barrel linkage bind up and cause it, seen throttle plates physically contacting the intake bores just enough to hang up and etc. I've even seen an intake that wasn't true and when you torqued the carb down it was actually causing it to flex and bind. But there shouldn't be any slop in the throttle rod. If you bought that thing new I'd see about a warranty return or repair. I'd say that there's a fair chance that Edelbrock would make good on it if it's a factory defect. |
Yesterday evening and this morning's project was installing a defroster. Up through the mid-80s, rear defrosters were not standard equipment like ash trays for every passenger. I guess back in the day, if you needed to heat up the back of the car, you had your kids light up a couple marlboros. I got the defroster like 99.87% done. I need to order some more of the coily wire to tidy up the ground side.  
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| Huh. I've never seen aftermarket rear window defrosters for sale that I can remember. Interesting. As an aside I had a 76 Dodge Dart back in the 80s that had a rear window defroster. It was an electric heating element and a fan that went in one side of the package shelf and blew warm air across the back window. It actually worked pretty well. I wish I had that Dart back. It was a "Special Edition". Had plush cloth upholstery, deep pile shag carpet, factory A/C, factory power disc brakes, power steering and etc. It had a passenger side mirror. Slant 6 automatic. It even had a hood ornament. Still had to roll your own windows down and lock your own locks. I bought the car in 1986 with 43,000 original miles on it. I paid the princely sum of $1200.00. And it was cherry. It had been garage kept from the time it was new. But at the time it was just an old car that nobody wanted. |
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Originally Posted By unreformed66: Huh. I've never seen aftermarket rear window defrosters for sale that I can remember. Interesting. As an aside I had a 76 Dodge Dart back in the 80s that had a rear window defroster. It was an electric heating element and a fan that went in one side of the package shelf and blew warm air across the back window. It actually worked pretty well. Yours was one of the more advanced ones if you even had a heating element in it. Some of the early defrosters manufacturers were putting out were just that box with a blower back in the package tray. This one I installed has a timed relay in it. You hit the button and it runs for 10 minutes, just like the factory one would have done. |
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I assume that the wagon already had the defroster wiring in place within the body. My younger son has a 1990 LX 5.0 and I added a defroster rear window to it. All I had to do was put in the dash switch up front and uncover the wires underneath the trim panel in the back and plug them in. Also, on the Mustang GT rear axle - did you also get the OEM horizontal / traction shocks from the Mustang and retrofit them to the wagon? |
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Originally Posted By Glynn863: I assume that the wagon already had the defroster wiring in place within the body. My younger son has a 1990 LX 5.0 and I added a defroster rear window to it. All I had to do was put in the dash switch up front and uncover the wires underneath the trim panel in the back and plug them in. Also, on the Mustang GT rear axle - did you also get the OEM horizontal / traction shocks from the Mustang and retrofit them to the wagon? Nope. This car did not have anything related to the defroster from the factory. I added the fuse, relay, switch, and ran the wiring from the front to the back and stuck the copper elements onto the glass. I did not add the quad shocks. I did get the "mooseballs" with it. The rear axle housing has the mounting tabs for the quad shocks. The car being an 83, the frame does not have the mount for the other end of the shocks. They sell the reproduction mounts for pretty cheap. I could probably figure out how to attach them to my frame. I'm not sure how much stank rivnuts are able to handle. If they aren't up to the task, I have a welder. The quad shocks themselves are $20 for new ones. |
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I got to fill the car up again today. Since the rear end swap, i gained another 1.8mpg with my around town driving and all short trips. I think that puts me better than the 5.0 mustangs, even the EFI ones. And its several mpgs better than the 5.8 cobra r. All while having more power and being heavier. I think there's still some more to be had. I haven't messsed with the rods/springs/jets in the carb. I'm cruising it a bit rich. The ignition is the stock duraspark. There may be a few more mpgs in there to shake out. |
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Welp, looks like i broke something else. I started getting some noise from the rear end over 35mph. When I got the car up in the air, there was a little bit of free play in the driver's wheel and it made a bit of noise when I spun it around. FML. I pulled the cover off the rear end and pulled the axles out. The guts in the carrier still seem good. Everything spins nice and quiet. All the parts are still there. The backlash and preload are still in spec. When I stick my finger in the ends to feel the axle bearings, they feel ok. All the rollers are rolling, but have some side to side play inside the little race. The real sadness is on the axle shafts themselves. There's an ugly grove on each of them that looks like where the bearings rode. I'm not sure if they were borked from the junk yard or not. I got a couple hundred miles out of them before they started making noise. I guess I'm on the hook for another pair of axles and bearings. Sad thing is, I just sold the old rear end out of this car. It had a couple axle shafts in it that may have just worked.  
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Originally Posted By unreformed66: Yeah, those have seen better days. At least replacements won't cost an arm and a leg. I ponied up for the moser ones. They say hardened and stronger than stock. It was an extra $100 for the pair, which doesn't seem too bad. I think a new driveshaft is on my short list. When I had this one shortened, the shop said the tube wall was on the thin side. It would be ok for cruising around but not launching. While I was trying to track down this sound from my bearings, I did see my driveshaft has a bit of a bow to it. I guess I might have partied a tad too much with it. I'll get a new one made up before I get rowdy with it. |
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I ate up an axle on one of my SN-95’s years ago. I used one of the “repair” bearings that moves the bearing surface in a little so they ride on the unmolested section of axle. It’s a real shitty design to have the axle itself as a bearing race. I prefer the good old 8” and 9” design of a pressed on bearing. |
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Originally Posted By ScottsGT: I ate up an axle on one of my SN-95’s years ago. I used one of the “repair” bearings that moves the bearing surface in a little so they ride on the unmolested section of axle. It’s a real shitty design to have the axle itself as a bearing race. I prefer the good old 8” and 9” design of a pressed on bearing. I'm hoping it was just a bad set of axles I got from the junk yard. They may have already had some surface damage to them and this was just inevitable. The "virgin" area on the driver's side axle looks like its toast, too. I wouldn't try running a repair bearing on those. I got a set of the forged axles, bearings, seals, and more fluid coming in. If it acts up again, I may just swap it to an aftermarket 9" housing. I have a spare 9" center section sitting here in a bucket begging to get built to go into something.
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Originally Posted By unreformed66: Did you ever get the carb issue figured out? I adjusted the throttle cable to put more tension on the return spring. And I swapped the throttle cable bracket to one that has a pair of return springs on it. The throttle cable adjustment by itself seemed like it was enough, but now it has 2 backups just in case. That's as far as I'm gonna take it for now. Next time I unbolt that carb from the intake, I want to be ready to bolt on a terminator TBI in its place. The current hold up on that is my fuel tank. I ordered one a while back. Rather than shipping it, they keep pushing the delivery date back. And this afternoon, I got the stuff to try out a different air cleaner setup. The drop base along with the 2" filter probably doesn't flow the best. I snagged a little carb hat with some duct and an old school K&N filter. I was just looking to get more flow out of it. There was a little spot in the fender liner with a hole to punch out that looked like they really wanted me to run the air duct through it.  
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My axles finally showed up today. Everything shipped at the same time from the same place in texas. All my crap got here 4 days ago, except the axles. Fedex decided they needed a vacation down to orlando on the way here. I had everything read to rock when they got here. It took me about 90 minutes to put the studs in them, then get the car all together; filled up with fluid and lug nuts torqued. Take #2 seems good so far. Its not leaking. Its not making any unhappy bearing noises. What is leaking, though, is my transmission. They ship the TKX with a plastic plug in the back. UPS guys yeet these things around and it hammers the plastic plug into the tail housing and sometimes ruins the seal. Mine is fubar. Modern Driveline is sending out a new and better seal. Its not a bad leak, just an annoying drip. I'm gonna keep driving it while I wait for the new seal.  
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Love this build. Thanks! But, you’ve gotta find an Audiovox cassette player for one of those openings and Radio Shack CB to put under the dash.
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In America, the village idiots have organized.
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Originally Posted By Hillbilly69: LOL yours too huh? I'm gonna find a good one sometime and I reckon we'll just have to duke it out because while I don't feel the need to be the fastest guy on the property anymore, I will have a nice fox body with a decent 427 (or so) Windsor for "playtime". I already have quite a few of the parts from when I used to race one. Sleeping with one eye open the rest of your life is a small price to pay for driving a cool car…
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In America, the village idiots have organized.
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Originally Posted By AA717driver: Love this build. Thanks! But, you’ve gotta find an Audiovox cassette player for one of those openings and Radio Shack CB to put under the dash. The lower spot has a few gauges and a panel in it now. I do want to address the car audio at some point. The radio thats in it does bluetooth, which is all I use, but its kinda flakey and doesn't always pair. I have to turn the car off and back on so it can try again. All the speakers are original. I'd like to replace them with aftermarket. Then whoever wired this radio up mixed up the wires between some of the speakers. I'm not sure when I'll get around to that. Whats in it works ok enough, I'm not really in a rush. But it is on my radar. And fucking a. This morning, I got another email from amazon about the gas tank that was supposed to be here before christmas. They finally canceled my order instead of pushing it back. I called up summit, who also shows the tank as back ordered. They couldn't get it and said call the manufacturer. Manufacturer says its discontinued but try gastanks.com, cause they sometimes have things in inventory. I went there where it showed in stock, but almost double the price of everybody else. bit the bullet and ordered it. Then I get a call that they dont actually have one here in the US, but they do in canada. If I want it, it'll be $80 to ship it. I reckon i'm gonna take this ride and see how it ends up. $260 for a fuel tank I'm hoping cut up and convert to an in-tank pump. At this rate, maybe by spring time I'll be out there tuning my EFI. |
Today's little project was replacing the real seal on the TKX. Modern Driveline sent out one they say is a better style than what ships in these. This one went in like every other transmission out there. It took longer to lift the car up than it did to replace the seal.  
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I came out of the house the other day to find one of my new high dollar walmart tires was flat. The construction workers dumping screws all over the roads got me again. I spent a half hour talking myself into going out in the cold to screw with it. Then it took me 11 minutes to fix it, from lifting the car up till when I was setting it back down with the tire pumped up. The hardest part of the job was motivating myself to go out in the cold. Its been a few days. The plug seems to be holding.  
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