Build Thread 1990 Lx 5.0 Restomod Build

I had some overspray in the rear wheel wells from getting the car painted. So I masked everything off, bought a cheap can of paint, and went to town.





My pinch welds have been f***** since I bought this car. Someone did a really poor job using a jack on this car. So, I straightened them back out and sprayed the face of them flat black. For some reason having the white strip of the pinch weld showing below the rocker panel of the car just looked off to me. I very carefully painted these.





No more white in the wheel wells and the pinch welds are no longer easily visible. Small work but for some reason it makes such a huge difference to me, especially when looking at a side profile view of the car.

FoxMustangLvr said:

Looks great! Next thing that will take only 10 minutes or so per side is rattle can those rusty brake drums black!

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Planning to do this when I swap out the rear end. I'll have to swap my rear brakes over at the same time so while they're off I'll shoot them black.

Will do. It will be after Christmas before I get them installed (wife is insistent we re-instill the "waiting" part of Christmas).

I was concerned, and still am a little bit, about having the 3.73's. I keep reading they're the best all around gear, but I remember driving one of my buddies 5.0 notches with 3.73's, as I mentioend earlier, and looking back I'm concerned they'll be too short for me. I remember starting off in 2nd gear a lot.

As I said before I was originally going to go with 3.55's but the deal on this 3.73 rear end was too good to pass up. I'm also hoping this new rear will help quiet things down; I feel like I'm getting a LOT of noise (and vibration) from the rear that's in there now.

I replaced the axle bearings and seals in the 3.73 rear end this past week. One of the axles is pitted a little bit, so when I pull my rear out I'll pull both axles from it, pick the best one, and swap it into the 3.73 rear end. That way I'll make sure I keep the best 2 axles I have available.

This weekend's project: adjust the headlights. I drove tonight for the first time in the dark. Both are pointed about 10 feet in front of the car at the ground.

Alright, finally getting back into it. We had our second child at the beginning of December and between family here, the holidays, and my wife's maternity leave today is the first day I've had a chance to work on the car. Let alone it's the first time I think I've washed it in 3-4 weeks.

Got the car up on jacks this morning and am starting to pull the rear end out. Going smoothly so far.

FoxMustangLvr said:

Congrats on being a Father x2!! I have a 4 y/o son and we are pregnant with twins due July 23rd =-)

Hope your swap goes smoothly. Sounds like a good time to go through those drums and replace shoes if need be and also your spring isolators for the rear end too.

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Thanks man! We were really lucky with our first (daughter). She slept through the night really early, wasn't cranky, really a great baby. Our son is completely the opposite. Doesn't sleep more than 4 hours at a time, has an incredible ability to spit up milk over an hour after he eats (and a lot too), and most of the time isn't happy unless you're walking around with him. Good luck with twins...

Rear brakes were completely rebuilt about 1,000 miles ago (before I started this build thread). When I swapped in the springs (also before this build thread) I checked the isolators and they were in good shape. Well, the top ones were. The bottom ones were junk. This time around I've just removed those and am going to run without them. They were torn to hell and back so they weren't doing anything anyways.

Busy day at work yesterday so I didn't make any progress, but I got a lot done the first day. I'm very surprised how easy this swap has been. I was able to get the new rear in place and almost completely bolted up. I still have to put the axles back in, seal up the diff cover, paint the rear drums (to hide that hideous rust from earlier), re-tighten everything on the rear end and then fill it up with fluid. Hoping to be able to drive it tomorrow.

Last thing to do is put the rear brakes back on my old rear end and try to sell it.

FoxMustangLvr

I'm running 245/50/16 front and back.

Got everything back together yesterday...car drives great. Will update when I get some more time.

So I've finally got the rear end in the car and about 50 or so miles on it, both stop and go traffic and highway (60-ish MPH).

FoxMustangLvr I do think this is a great gear for the street, especially since I'm not driving around town flooring it all the time. I did a couple of quick runs shifting around 4,500 through first, second and third. There is definitely an appreciable difference in how quickly the car gets up and goes. Obviously I would have noticed a bigger difference if I had 2.73's in there before, but the jump from 3.08 to 3.73 is still worth it IMO. I can't say what 3.55's would be like obviously, but I imagine they really wouldn't feel a whole lot different than 3.73's.

Cruising around town (45MPH or so) I'm running around 2,200 - 2,300 RPM (according to the 22 year old stock tach). It feels high so I find myself shifting into 5th when I get much above 45mph. What are other people usually running around town? Think common street, not a stoplight every 1/4 - 1/2 mile and steady traffic flow. I'm used to smaller displacement engines so running a 5.0 around town at 2,300+ just doesn't seem right to me, but maybe it is.

Of course, with everything, something doesn't go right or isn't quite as expected. For me, this rear is noisy. I hear a noticeable whine/howl from the rear end as speed increases and it is louder when you're on the gas (accelerating, not decelerating). It's most noticeable in 3rd and 4th. From what I've read a whine under load (accelerating) is due to the gears being too tight. Clunking or knocking occurs when the gears are too loose. Funny thing is, I've got some of that too, especially during parking lot driving (clutch in, clutch out, coast, clutch out, etc.) People that know me will confirm I'm very sensitive to noises, clunks, rattles, etc. If I can hear anything other than a normal engine sound and exhaust I fear something is wrong. I've also read that cars with higher gear ratios tend to have a bit of a howl/whine, but I've seen things disputing that. Also seems that a lot of people with aftermarket gears have some level of whine/howl, with less than the majority having perfectly quiet operation.

So, is it going to hurt anything to drive it with this whine/howl under load? I'd rather not swap in a new set of gears as that would completely defeat the purchase of this new rear end. As I also understand it, once the gears are installed and driven with (which happened way before I purchased this rear end) you can't really go in and adjust them to eliminate the howl or whine.

Thoughts, opinions, comments? Sorry to be long winded. Here's some pictures.

I removed the backing plates from the axle housing so I could just tie the brakes up out of the way when I swapped axles. I used a piece of 3/8" rope wound through the hole for the shock.


Old one out


New one going in


All bolted up


Used some flat black implement paint to freshen up the drums and hopefully prevent them from rusting as fast

I've still got a few boxes in my closet from Christmas that haven't made it on the car yet. I was waiting for a few things before I dropped the transmission (for a 3rd time) and installed these parts.



FRPP Flywheel
King Cobra Clutch
Ford Racing OEM clutch cable and fork.

I bought new ARP flywheel bolts along with a flywheel dowel and pressure plate bolt kit this morning. I also picked up a Flex-a-lite variable speed fan controller so I can install the Mercury Villager fan in the stock shroud sometime soon. I need to pick up a firewall adjuster for the clutch cable as well sometime. I've got some travel for work coming up next week so hopefully when I get back I can start working on this.

There is already a quadrant installed, so all I need is the firewall adjuster now. When I bought the car I remember the guy mentioning that he had a firewall adjuster installed...after I got the car home and started poking around I noticed it wasn't there anymore. I think he pulled it off while we were in negotiations over the car. Son of a *****.