05-02-10 Drivetrain installed

Drivetrain installed

Missed a weekend of updates, but that's mostly because there wasn't enough to bother...that and I made one of those 'facepalm' booboos and got torqued off enough it was best to back away for a bit. Nothing unrecoverable, just a pain in the ass to un-do. Also been busy working on getting the old house ready to sell (closing on May 5, cross your fingers for me!). Winter has made a springtime relapse lately so I don't feel quite so bad about not being further along.

When the technical stuff is kicking your butt you can always rivet some more sheetmetal...got the outer cockpit wings riveted on and sealed up a couple of gaps with silicone...

After futzing around with where to cut a hole through the firewall to install the heater, I decided to mount it on top of the footbox and just run the ducts through. Most of the heater will be tucked under the body once it's installed, and it should leave room for a glovebox in the dash. The heater is a universal unit from Summit that has a 28kr BTU rating (compared to the 13-14k BTU for the FFR unit I had previously). Should keep the legs toasty on late fall cruises.

I had a bellhousing to put on the motor but it had a broken bolt that simply would not be removed, and it liked to eat easy-outs for dessert. A quick call to Max at Five Star Ford had another on my doorstep in 2 days (Max rules). So I could finally proceed with getting the drivetrain ready to drop in. Rumor has it you can drop the motor in a MkII and wiggle the transmission in from underneath...I already learned the hard way on 4760 that's more likely someone's drug-induced delusion, so I was just going to drop the whole assembly in the first time. The pickup bed made a convenient workbench to get it ready...this is where I had the 'facepalm' moment mentioned above.

Carefully locktited and bolted the flywheel to the crank, installed the clutch, pressure plate, bellhousing and transmission. Then as I was getting ready to bolt the started on I looked over on the floor and saw this block plate sitting there. SONOFA>@$%#... to hell with this, I'll try again tomorrow... which I did. Took everything back off the next day when I had regained my sense of humor, put the block plate on, then re-installed the rest. NOW it was ready to install.

Mikey was more than willing but very intimidated by the big orange cherry-picker so I had to get the wifey to help. (just like last time!) She was a reasonably good sport about the late hour and put her bathrobe on at least...once again on tailshaft duty.

With some wiggling and shoving this way and that the motor mounts clicked into place....glad to see the oil pan I put on there is well above the frame rails.

And the deed was done...I didn't attach the mount nuts until I was able to check the next day to make sure I could get the driveshaft in position without lifting the assembly back up a bit. (Just had to lift up on the transmission a bit).

I think I'll dig the new shifter location. Also, the Chevy/Ford 'hybrid' transmission mount made by Mike Forte fit perfectly...a must-have for the S-10 tailshaft swap.

Ground away a bit of powdercoating and installed the chassis ground cable...

Made a discovery with the motor in that my fuel line routing wasn't going to work...I should have remembered how little clearance there was on the inside of the passenger footbox with the 4-into-4 headers in place. Fabbed up a bracket to reinstall the fuel pressure regulator off to the side. Still closer than is ideal to the headers...I'll have to make up some heat shielding as well. I also started mocking up the water pump, alternator and power steering pump brackets. Turns out I was missing a spacer for the alternator bracket so I'll have to get them to ship one to me or just make one.

While I'm waiting on those parts I figured I might as well finish buttoning up the front suspension. First I needed to pull the innter tie rod boots and tie rods so I can install the steering rack extenders.

Here's the passenger side installed...it moves the inner pivot point out 2 inches on each side, which should greatly reduce the bumpsteer you would see on the older cars. I'll have to get some longer boots to compensate, I've read about several builders having the boots pop off while driving since this can overextend the stock boot.