Progress Thread LTD-ing

OX1

Active Member
Apr 16, 2014
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Figured it's time to start general upgrade/repair thread.
Posted a bit about my pinion seal leak, which turned out to be
leaking through pinion splines/flange. Did the RTV on the splines
thing and new pinion seal anyway.

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Luckily, I did crush sleeve eliminator kit during gear swap, so just required
buzzing on a new nut, to a reasonable torque to retain pinion bearing pre-load.

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Due to dad attending car shows virtually every night for years, never got to change diff oil after gear swap
(usually like to do oi @ 1000 miles or less).
Oil was really ugly, but no issues of major wear I can see. Cleaned up diff cover a bit.

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Had replaced one muffler about 6 years ago, making the other one and it's pipes lacking.
Decided to put a new one in and clean/paint extension/tail pipe.

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New muff no longer comes with "fox body" bracket.
Drilled out spot welds, Tack'd it to new muff.

POR-15'd the bracket and ext pipe to muff, then
covered with post POR-15 primer (ready for alum spray paint).

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Love 4 posts working on exh.

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Painted ends of new muff

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Could only get one bolt on bracket. Other side was the same thing.
Just where the muff's "wanted to be" I guess :)

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All buttoned up.

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Next on to cleaning up the rear diff/calipers/rear susp arms while I'm in here.
Then upgrade fuel pump/wiring, and hopefully finally fix fuel gauge
(which hasn't worked in 10 years).
 
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Cleaned painted calipers, rotor hats, some of diff casing. Tried to grease susp arms, but one of the
grease fittings ripped off. Does not seem like any of them were threaded too well.

POR-15'd the rear calipers. Supposedly, just regular POR-15 can take 600 F.
Used high temp silver engine paint over that.

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Painted rear shocks, caliper brackets, and cleaned up rear wheels.

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Had to drop lower control arm to fix grease fitting. Figured I'd paint springs while I'm in there.

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All back together

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Got some work done on the upgraded 255 pump and fuel guage issue.

Dad had made an access panel many moons ago.

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Pulled the numbers off the pump. Definitely a 155. Am losing fuel pressure
@ high RPM, full boost.

255 I got from a friend.

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Grounded fuel guage, pinned itself above full. So I guess the guage itself works.
Tested float in some gas.

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Seems to "float"

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Tested resistance range, seems about right on both ends and can't find any drop offs throughout it's range.
Suspect that 4 pin factory connector is making intermittent contact and probably not getting full voltage to fuel pump either.

This was an extra LTD fuel hat I had, drilled out rivets on wiring connections, just to see what that got me.

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Was able to run 10 guage directly to pump, solder wire to "+" side of fuel guage
and create a better ground, eliminating factory connector

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Blobbed on some fuel safe Permatex. There was some kind of sealer on these connections from the factory, trying to emulate that.
Not sure how much it is needed, as there is a rubber grommet like seal that was around each pin in original connections
(which I kept in there).

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Also added Weatherpack connectors. Supposedly good to 20 amps, and best I can find, 255 pump draws max of 16.

Ready to go back in.........

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Guess I get to finally test out that lockup converter. We kept lockup with AOD trans build (back in the day)
when it was jsut a stock HO 5.0 and (low boost blower). I did upgraded shaft (when stroker went in), but trans
was only rated 300 HP (gross) due to keeping lockup.
 
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