Mustang5l5's Progress Thread - Archived Progress thread '08-'20.

[Mustang5L5]

Had to mount one wheel up. Couldn't resist.

That's prob all you get this weekend. Working on the house but if I get a break I'll finish bleeding the brakes, get all 4 wheels on and back the car out and take some pics. Haven't started it since around Xmas

I like it...a lot. And yes, now I need a new set of OEM chrome 5.0s


I think 235/45/17 is a perfect choice up front for pre-91 fenders.


Now off to install baseboard and casing

 

[Mustang5L5]

Ok. House stuff done so I got an hour to mess with the car.

The pressure bleeder setup is pretty sweet. Basically it's like gravity bleeding but faster. Rears were pretty much air free, but fronts had air as I suspected. In order to bleed them, I had to unbolt top bolt and rotate caliper up. After I did this, big glob of air came out of each.

So after air came out of both, I tested the pedal and was much firmer. Hard as a rock after a few pumps. So I decided to start engine. Now, it's been a few months since I've driven car, but pedal felt soft...as in MC sized too small soft. Turn engine off, and hard as a rock after a few pumps. Guess I need to drive it.

didn't take it for ride due to lug nuts being finger tight. Guess I need to back it out of garage and take around the block and see how pedal feel is.

Should still be able to use the 1" bore MC because the vette PBRs uses 40.3mm pistons and the 99+ cobra is 40.5mm. Pedal feel should be the same. Not sure if it actually is because I never really sit and mash the pedal when I had the cobra brakes. In fact, when driving I barely had to touch the pedal

Anyway hung it up for the night. I'll have to go for a ride.

Oh yeah...all 4 wheels are now on. It looks pretty sweeT

 

[Mustang5L5]

All I got are crummy garage pics. Too late to take it outside

Here's the fit of 255/45/17 on 17x8s with sn95 axles. Plenty of space between tire and quad shock

 

[Mustang5L5]

Discovered I need to change the speedo gear.

I was running 235/45/17 on all four 97 Cobra wheels before, so I Medes the 21 tooth red gear.

But now, with 255/45/17 out back...

The taller tire will knock a few RPM off at highway speed too. Not much though. Gotta get these 3.27s in

 

[Mustang5L5]

Stupid me has to go play with things...

Too lazy to go pulling the interior apart right now. I assume I can just resecure this to the fuel filler door release somehow?

Speedo gear showed up.



I took Monday off from work. Peace and quiet and perfect for starting rack removal. I at least want to get it all apart first. Then I can measure and adjust the tie rods and get ready for install. Hardest part should be the cooler. I just feel like I need to remove the nose to get it installed securely.

Also, just remembered i need to make sure this clears the C5 PBRs.

Anyway. Monday AM after some coffee and watching The latest episode of walking dead...we start

 

[Mustang5L5]

Ok. Had some free time to go into the garage. Tried the spare tire.

Cobra 17" spare does NOT clear the C5 PBRs. It hits the top ribs on the caliper.

So not sure what to do about spare. I do have AAA and towing with Haggerty, but I like the idea of keeping a spare with me. Are there any 18" spares out there that will fit fox well? Since the spare clears the rears, I'll keep it in the car for now.

Since I was taking wheels off, I swapped my lugs over to the Gorrilla Lug Nuts. Looks much cleaner

And yeah...if you can't tell....I really like how this Brake/Wheel combo turned out. Really pops in person

Ok no more wheel pics I promise....maybe

 

[Mustang5L5]

So back to heads...

Which ones do I want?
M58 or M61?

https://www.trickflow.com/compare

Looks like main difference is combustion chamber size? Also dual springs vs single?

Pricing is pretty similar, just unsure which to order?

These are going on stock 302 bottom in my '88. No boost.

 

[Mustang5L5]

Look into an S197 spare. I know my 2011 came with 19's from the factory, but many came with 18's starting in 2010. If you can find one for cheap, it would be worth a try. Maybe a junk yard?

Looks like there was an 18" spare. Question is, is it really worth it?

Guess I could just sell my Cobra spare locally. Need to plug a 185/55/18 into tire Calc and see what OD that is

Edit: damn. The tire size works. A 185/55 is 26" on OD....same size as my rear 255/45/17. Maybe this will work

 

[Mustang5L5]

Ok. Took day off of work for my bday. Let's start doing this shall we

 

[Mustang5L5]

Old stuff out. Wasn't too bad. About 2hrs not following any sort of directions. Would have been quicker had I know wrench sizes beforehand, and knew I had to take steering shaft off first before trying to get the rack out

From what I can remember.

18mm and 15mm for the two rack bolts.
11/16 and 5/8 for upper shaft bolts
11mm 12-pt for lower shaft pinch bolt.

The shaft was a PITA. I used air tools and extensions and once o figured out corrrct angles to attack from, came out easy. I'd go mad doing it by hand.

Old rack is an SPR BT rack. Need to look up if this is a 4cyl rack, or extremely overboosted 5.0 rack.

That's it for the moment. Stopping for lunch, and to let the lines drain of fluid.

After lunch, I plan on doing some cleaning, and measuring old tie rod length to transfer to SN rack to at least get it in the ball park.

Who know I might even install it...but I am setting a hard stop point at 2pm to sit on couch and be lazy.

 

[Mustang5L5]

Adjusting tie rod ends to similar length as original


Would appear that 54" gets me in the ballpark. I'll adjust on car of course after centering everything

 

[Mustang5L5]

New lines in. Let's get this in the car

 

[Mustang5L5]

Decided to bolt the steering shaft on now. Ready to slid this in.

 

[Mustang5L5]

It's in. Lines had to come off to get it in though. The sway bar was in the way. No big deal, just need to grab some new teflon seals first. What I get for rushing and trying to cut a corner.


Steering shaft in too and tightened down. Centering wasn't a huge deal as I had the rack pretty centered. A couple adjustments but got the wheel centered. Just need to tweak toe a tiny bit.

Only issue..steering shaft hits headers. I had to push the column shaft in slightly to get the MM shaft to mate to the "stub". Now it's all set but with the column in, the shaft hits the headers slightly.

I need a way to push the column back out about 1" to kick the shaft out away from headers.

Just need to deal with lines and that issue and I'm done.

Oh...alignment. need to find a place to take this thing.

 

[Mustang5L5]

I agree, but I feel like I can solve this by other means first. After searching and reading, I should have pulled the rack out a tad rather than whack the column in.

I have a few ideas....just need time. Seals are on order. I needed some other stuff from rockauto so I threw them in rather than drive to parts store.

But I think I know how to push that expanding part of the column back into the bay to "kick" the shaft over a bit


Btw, just turning the steering wheel now takes more effort..in a good way.

 

[Mustang5L5]

loosen up the four nuts holding the column to the dash, wedge something in between where you have contact, and then retighten. theres an amazing amount of slop in where the column can sit.

I read about that. I think this, plus extending the column a tad will solve the issue.

Mine hit the headers at first too and I ended up having to pull the shaft out a little to gain clearance..

Glad to hear that. Other than this small hiccup, the swap was pretty straightforward.

Something to consider also, is that you are looking to do a head swap soon. May or may not affect your header clearance issue. I'd probably wait until that is done (if you plan on doing it in the very soon future), and then see where you stand from there.

True, but I'm still rounding up parts from that so it won't be soon soon. I still need to bed in the brakes, and iron out the toe and find someplace I trust to align this thing. Plus we are coming up on spring, and I'd like to take the car for a quick ride after a bitter cold winter.

Plus I still need to do a small detail like convert to Mass Air. Next project on the list

I've got enough to keep me busy in projects

 

[Mustang5L5]

Fussed with it a bit. Pushed the column back, adjusted the column and this is what I ended up with. It's a bit more than 1/8" but under 1/4" of gap.

Is that enough?

As you can see, I have the MM shaft nearly collapsed. In fact I may expand it a tad as it didn't make much difference.

I'm going to play with it some more. Might try adding two washers under the rear steering column bolts to angle it down a tiny bit. Might give me more space. I'd feel more comfortable with a solid 1/4"+

 

[Mustang5L5]

Best I could manage.

Just gonna dimple the header. Now to see how to do it in the car as I don't want to pull it off

 

[Mustang5L5]

BBK Chrome shorty unequal length headers. I think I still have the receipt for them somewhere, but I am pretty sure they were one of the first mods I put on the car...so 1998 or 1999 or somewhere near then.

Chrome is long gone as you can see, but they still are solid...as evident by the fact that I need to pull this one off in order to dimple it properly. I might as well hit it with some high temp header paint or something while it's off.

 

[Mustang5L5]

So found myself in Autozone today, so picked up the teflon washers. They are in the HELP aisle. Dorman 82540. They are .75 cents a pack on rockauto..but $3 in the store. What a rip. Good thing I have 4 packs from rockauto in the mail.

Anyway, hot water soak, stretch over socket extension, and on they go. Hopefully Sat Am I can sneak under the car and install.

FYI: unsure if I mentioned it but I will NOT be installing the factory SN95 ps cooler. There's just no room with how the LX bumper attaches on the bottom. The AC condenser is also in the way, so really a choice between steering cooler, or human cooler. What sucks is i paid over $100 for the SN cooler, so guess I'll stick it back on eBay and see if I can sell it. In the future I'll get a small aftermarket cooler instead....should have gone that way from day 1