Progress Thread Therapy Car-- Freshening Up the Lower Intake

[Olivethefet]

I did find some not so good stuff while working on the drivers side suspension. I've said it before. This car had a hard life before I got it. Not as bad as a lot of cars, but it was abused in the past. I knew the left side torque box was bent from what I'm guessing is rednecks with floor jacks, but it's worse than I thought.

There are some pretty significant cracks in the box, and its mangled pretty bad from people prying on it. I'm guessing this isn't something that you would just weld up. I plan on putting it all back together for now. Later I'll drill the welds out remove the box and put a new one in. Reinforcements were already on the "to do" list.

 

[Mustang5L5]

What happened to the rear of your car to cause both springs to look like that and require a truck to line up a control arm? I've never seen that before

 

[Olivethefet]

At this point I figured I'd put a clarification statement in here for anyone paying attention to this cluster. This is a progress thread. It's not a build thread. I watch a lot of people on here doing awesome things and producing amazing looking cars. One day I hope this car might be one of them. However, my main goal at this point is to make it solid and enjoy the hell out of it for a bit.

I could spend a lot of time trying to clean everything up and make it shiny. I do from time to time when it makes sense. This car is a mess. It needs LOTS of TLC from years of neglect. I've been driving around commuters ever since I got out of high school. I'm looking forward to just having fun with something different. I also just get an extreme amount of enjoyment out of just wrenching on the car. I've done a lot of things to date that were not necessary to just get the car back on the road. Again, just having fun and upgrading where I can and want to.

Sort term goal. Get it back on the road and drive it. Fix/upgrade as I can and need to.

I've got the 65 sitting there screaming at me to GET TO IT! That's my mid term goal. Focus on the 65 and get it put back together right. It's going to take a lot of time, energy, and money. It will be my primary focus point for a long period of time. It will be a lightly used car. I plan on getting it painted with all new interior. I don't plan on taking it back apart at a later date to do a major face lift. That being said as things go on it they will be shiny. They will be right. Once it's done and the funds have recharged it'll be back to the fox.

Long term goal. Strip the fox completely down. Clean it up and fix all the cosmetic issues. Pour some money into it and make it a car that you might want to take to a show and actually let people know that it was your car. So that day is coming. Just not now.

This isn't to say I wont be wasting money on the fox and upgrading things. I absolutely will! I just might allocate more of my "mad" money to the 65 for a bit.

 

[Olivethefet]

What happened to the rear of your car to cause both springs to look like that and require a truck to line up a control arm? I've never seen that before

No idea! At first I thought the car might have been in a major accident, but I cant find any evidence of that. The car spent most of its life in south Louisiana. A lot of really terrible roads down there. I figure it got road hard and hit lots of hard bumps. The car doesn't track weird as far as I can tell.

The old control arm came out will little effort. I didn't look at the alignment when I took the bolts out, but I didn't have to pry them out either.

Maybe the new arm is slightly different then the old. Then again maybe the old one was just bent!

I am worried about the exhaust. The old arms were clearanced to keep from hitting the exhaust. The exhaust is on the list of upgrades though. If I have to I'll take the hammer to the exhaust before I start hacking up the control arms.

 

[Olivethefet]

I forgot to mention I had help putting the tail housing on..... I lost track of him.

He found a sharpie Luckily he didn't do any permanent damage! Spider Man may never be the same though.

 

[General karthief]

Talk to the hand, dad! Just talk to the hand!

 

[90sickfox]

I think those springs were heated with a torch to lower them. An old redneck trick. Lining the exhaust up shouldn't be an issue once everything is back together. That torque box looks salvageable. I've seen way worse that got welded back together.

 

[Olivethefet]

That torque box looks salvageable.

Well, that's good to know!

I had a similar issue getting the left side UCA on last night. This time I connected it to the upper torque box first.

You can see it just didn't quite want to line up. Instead of using the truck I was able to just strap to the lift instead.

Either way it worked.

Here is a pic of where to UCA has almost rubbed a hole in the exhaust.

Hopefully tonight I can get the spring and LCA on. Little bits of progress every night just about.

 

[stanglx2002]

The alignment process is normal since the rearend does have the ability to move after removal of the control arm. It just takes as you see a little assistance if making it go back to where its supposed too.

Great work though!

 

[Olivethefet]

Ran out of PTFE grease the other day and had to order some more. Everything I've read about the poly bushings says to put lots of that grease on them to help keep them from squeaking. I'll pay $5 for 3 more tubes to try to stop that from happening.

Got the left rear suspension finished.

New transmission mount is on. No big deal I know. I'm currently painting the new cross-member. I decided not to weld it after all the comments about Wayne getting away with it for years. This isn't a high horsepower car. I think I'll be OK. Besides I can keep a close eye on it and if it looks like its getting damaged I'll address it later. One point of concern though. When I went to clean up the bolts that hold the trans mount and exhaust bracket to the transmission tail shaft I noticed aluminum stuck in the treads of one of the bolts. Not a lot. Maybe 1.5 wraps at the point where the bolt bottoms out. I inspected the tail-housing and it was easy to see which side that bolt came out of. When I went to bolt everything up I made sure that bolt went on that side. The problem is the bolt got tight but I couldn't get it to fully snug up.

What do you guys think? Helicoil now?

Moving back to the other end of the car. I've got to clean up the differential cover. PO or someone used a ton of RTV on the cover the last time they put it on. I thought that there was a metal gasket of sorts that went between the diff and the cover. I don't have one, should I? Also, I've seen it recommended to change out the bolt that holds the pin in the chunk of the diff. Is that really necessary?

I bet you cant guess where that blue paint came from that is on that screwdriver.

 

[General karthief]

Just use black rtv on the cover, don't need to be strong arm tight, snug it up let it sit overnight before adding fluid if you can.
i would replace that bolt if it were me.

 

[Olivethefet]

The car has been hanging on the lift for a month now! It will make it a few more days. I'll look into the Helicoil option. I've never installed one before, but I'm sure there are one or two youtube vids on how to do it.

I'm taking the wee man trick or treating tonight and then headed north to my parents place on Friday to pick up more of the old 65 along with some other stuff. It will most likely be next week before I really get to do much more to the car.

I've got some anaerobic gasket maker that I was planning on using on the diff cover. Thats what I used on the tail-housing. The cover is really nasty looking on the outside, rusty. I'm going to take it with me to my folks place. My dad has a blast cabinet. It will make short work of cleaning it up so I can paint it.

 

[Olivethefet]

I looked in the nut/bolt index but didn't find it. Anybody know what size and pitch the bolts are that hold the transmission mount to the tail-housing?

 

[Olivethefet]

I made a little progress over the weekend. While at my dads place I used his media blaster to clean up the diff cover and repaint it. It's not perfect but looks much better than it did!

And the transmission brace is ready to put on.

On a side note I he gave me this old saw. It's just an old Poulan, but it was my granddads. My dad can remember him using it when he was a kid. I remember him using it when I was a kid. Hell I've cut a lot of stuff up with this thing! It runs but needs a tune up.

 

[Olivethefet]

The transmission is once again securely in the car.

The new wheel bearings and seals are in.

I didn't have a socket big enough to drive the seal, so I used an old air compressor piston that I had laying around. Worked pretty good!

 

[Olivethefet]

I need you guys opinion on something. Last year when I took the front suspension off and redid everything I accidentally messed up the brake splash guard on the right side. When I was jacking up that side of the car I didn't realize it but the jack just caught the guard and crumpled it as I lifted the car. At the time I just said the hell with it and put it all back together without the guard.

Well I'm about to have to bust everything loose to install the new front springs, so this would be a great time to put a new guard on. This isn't a daily driver. Is it a big deal not having the guard in place?

 

[General karthief]

I would put another one on. Don't know how important it is.

 

[Mustang5L5]

Won't make any noticeable difference really. I prefer to run them though. Just seems more "complete"

 

[Olivethefet]

OK, I'll start looking around and see if I can find a replacement splash guard.

I hung the tailpipes back up on the car last night as well. I didn't take a pic, but on both sides where the exhaust goes over the axle it is hitting the UCA and the inside of the frame rail. I still have to fit the h-pipe, but I dont see that really helping the clearance issue.

I think its 2.5" exhaust. Is it common to have clearance issues with these cars running that size exhaust. I ask because it looks like whoever put the exhaust on didn't do a good job lining things up when they welded it.

The exhaust is all crusty and looks terrible anyway. It's yet another thing on the long list of things I want to replace at some point.

 

[Rdub6]

OK, I'll start looking around and see if I can find a replacement splash guard.

I hung the tailpipes back up on the car last night as well. I didn't take a pic, but on both sides where the exhaust goes over the axle it is hitting the UCA and the inside of the frame rail. I still have to fit the h-pipe, but I dont see that really helping the clearance issue.

I think its 2.5" exhaust. Is it common to have clearance issues with these cars running that size exhaust. I ask because it looks like whoever put the exhaust on didn't do a good job lining things up when they welded it.

The exhaust is all crusty and looks terrible anyway. It's yet another thing on the long list of things I want to replace at some point.

when I did my transmission/ clutch work, I was hit with the unexpected exhaust job. A pile of rusted metal came out of both mufflers and the rest of the pipes were rusting from the inside out as well. Anyway, my point is, I replaced everything but the headers with 2 1/2 and had no clearance issues at all over the rear end. I had some by the trans crossmember, but I blame that on my cheap buy on the no-name H-pipe .

can you possibly cut your pipes to allow you to turn it differently and then use those slip/band clamps to secure it again. Could be a fix until you can replace?