a4ld dying...

Hints too!

Just finished mine and this site helped.
http://projecthp.ford23.com/howto.html
I know everyone is going to say "Do a search" One thing about that is that
for the last 4 years you get a lot of posts that say "do a search".
At the top of this forum is also "Tech Articles" Lots of good stuff there..including
the above site. Some of these describes a V8 swap so there are some differences.
Driveshaft is different and a V8 or 2.3 manual driveshaft will work. It also appears that the AOD V8 driveshaft will work, but I;m not sure.
Beware of the little things. I spent 2 hours pulling the A4LD and 3 hours installing.
2 days waiting on that silly C-clip for holding the clutch cable to the bellhousing.
Bought a $1.99 plastic pump at Harbor Freight for putting in the fluid.
Under dash note which plugs are not currently hooked up. I wasted a lot of time trying to hook up stuff that doesn't hook up to anything.
Do not get the nuts from the seat mixed up with the nuts that hold the steering column in. They are similar and the seat nuts will "seem" to work holding up the column, but the column nuts will not work on the seat. (disassemble and reassemble ain't fun)
Move the speedo cable while the pedals are out. Underhood is a speedo cable bracket that you can undo to give you more room but it can be done without this.
If you MUST take out the gauge cluster, there are 2 torx screws on the top of the dash that are hard to reach. 1/4 ratchet with a 1/4 socket and the right bit or a flexible 1/4 extension will work.
Get some Loc-tite and a 13 mm ratcheting wrench (or the whole set) you wll cry with joy when you use it on the bellhousing bolts.
Also the bracket on the exhaust pipe seemed to make it ride a little low so I had the muffler shop cut and reweld the bracket.
The screwdriver trick on the master cylinder is the key to getting the pedals to nearly fall out. #10 under "Removal of the pedal assembley"
Chek your rear gears! I have 3.73 and I still need to research the speedo calibration gears to make it read right.
With the 3.73 gears 1st gear is way steep and I may go for different rear gears
so I can use first gear beyond 10 MPH.
Have fun!
Bruce