Little Steps (Flipping a ford 9")

Well got a little bit more done today.  Since I didn't have a space to roll the engine hoist out without blocking all access to my driveway, I got a small extension poured on the driveway.  It has finally cured enough to put the truck on it and I thought I would christen it with some dirt and work.  My plan was to pull the bed off the truck, and flip the rear axle.  So that is what I did.

The flip kit I used was from Performance Online (POL).  The kit was specified for 53-56 F-100's as well as some GM trucks with a 2 1/4" spring width.  I went and researched the measurements of spring width for my 60' and decided it would fit and it does.  It is currently only mocked in, meaning I haven't welded the spring perches in, or measured to center the axle up exactly.  Luckily I was able to reuse my axle center pin.  I just put clamps on either side of the pin to keep the spring pack from coming apart and unbolted and removed them. Since they weren't damaged, I just flipped them over and inserted them from the top of the spring pack and tightened the nut down.  Once I get around to pulling the bed to rebuild the rear suspension, I'll take care of welding the perches in.  I also noticed that I have a broken leaf on the drivers side, so I will most likely end up getting new springs for it.

Right now the engine and transmission are still out because I need to fabricate the brackets to attach the Jaguar front end. I did adjust the the front end to center the front wheel in the wheel well.  Right now I have some tall tires on the rear end (255/65/16) and some small front tires (185/75/14) on it.  Eventually I will need to have the axles drilled for a different bolt pattern which leads to the thought of which brakes do I use on the rear end.  Do I convert to rear disc's, have the stock drums re-drilled (and every time I need to replace a drum), or get a newer drum brake kit that has drums with multiple bolt patterns?  Not sure yet...

I also bought some more parts like a C-Notch kit from Classic Performance Parts CPP.  I'll get this put in next time I have have the bed off and it isn't hot enough that tools left in the sun for five minutes to cause second degree burns.  One of these days I will have build a work shop so that I don't have to bake when working on a vehicle.

I am planning to get a 20 or 22 gallon Mustang tank later this month to put under the bed, so I'll add that to the to-do list when the bed is off.

The after pic is crappy because I took it with my iPod which has endured a hard life.  The screen is cracked and has melted spots from welding spatter.

Before:

After:

A few parts that make my Hobart Auto Arc 130 Welder work better...

I have had my welder for a while now and have bought a few items that seem to make it run a little better, or at least make using it easier. Amazon sells the Auto Arc 130 both in a ‘kit’ or by itself.

Some of the items are performance related while others are simply nice to have.  If you plan on running a 10 pound spool of wire, you will need the Handler Hub Kit. Also if you plan on doing much welding with flux cored wire, you should use the correct nozzle.  From what I understand, it will keep the splatter that is associated with flux cored welding from clogging the gas ports on the gun.  The MIG welding gel makes it easier to keep the tip/nozzle clean as well.


It gets very dusty where I live so I thought that a cover would help out and it does.  Since the Auto Arc is made by Hobart, they have a cover that fits it well.  My kit also came with a fixed shade helmet, but it got tiring flipping the mask up and down when beginning to start a weld, so I got an auto-darkening helmet and I love it! it has adjustable shades via a knob on the side as well as a setting for grinding or welding.  That way if you plan on grinding, it doesn’t automatically darken the lens.


My Auto Arc 130 Kit came with a fixed flow regulator and from every thing I had read, it seemed to have a flow rate that was too high for some work and could unnecessarily empty your shielding gas tank too quickly. So I found the Fourney regulator. I included several Victor regulators as well.


Hope this info helps out other Auto Arc owners.  I will try and see if I can find some other items and add them here when possible.

Made a little progress today...

We had a break in the weather in late January, so I headed out to remove some of the suspension mount rivets from the frame.  All was going well.  I actually had on PPE (personal protective equipment) which for those of you that know me know that generally flip flops and shorts are as close to PPE as I get regardless of what or where I am working.

On to the story.  I had used my angle grinder with a cut off wheel to cut an "X" in the head of each of the rivets to speed the removal.  I didn't feel like firing up my compressor to use my air hammer so I had a BFH ( 3-Pound Drilling Hammer) and was making pretty good progress.  I had on thick gloves and was removing the stock front engine mount brackets.  Well the chisel slipped off the rivet head as soon as the hammer touched it and that changed the trajectory of the hammer head so that it attempted to occupy the same space as my thumb.  We all know physics, right?  Big steel hammer, soft squishy thumb....

 This pic was taken within a minute of the hit.  Honestly I thought I had mashed it good because I became oddly aware that the glove felt wet.  I was pretty sure that I had blown the insides of my thumb out!  Must be the old age, because I didn't scream and cuss and throw things, this time! So I was happy when it came out of the glove intact.  Needless to say the nail did come off. Luckily, or not, I spent about a month on jury duty so it had time to heal.

On to the progress I made today.  I got the old straight axle suspension out and got the frame resting on the Jaguar XJS front suspension.  I still need to box the front portion of the frame, build mounts, and adjust the axle centerline.  All in all it is looking better.

Best tool purchase I have made in a while.

I got very tired of using a hand drill to make several repetitive holes in a piece of steel, so I began to think about a drill press.  Of course I had dreams of grandeur and wanted a "bigger is better" drill press until I saw what they cost!  So then I went down the rabbit hole of how much drill press can I get for a certain amount of money.  We all know that there is a crossing point where the item stops being a value based on its short comings either in quality for function.  That meant I had to decide what I really needed.  I went and looked at the Ryobi 10 inch bench top drill press at Home Depot, mostly because it was convenient and I got to actually get hands on the device.  It didn't appear too bad, but when I researched the reviews I came to an entirely different conclusion. Quite honestly, it most likely would have worked for everything I was ever going to do with it, but I thought I'd shop around a little bit for a similar product.

 After some online research I found the SKIL 10 inch bench top model and the reviews were pretty good, both at the SKIL tool web site and Amazon.  Like the Ryobi ZRDP102L 10"Drill Press with Laser, this one has the laser guide as well.  I liked what I had read, so I ordered it.  I got it in two days (thank you Amazon Prime)!  It was delivered in the OEM box which was more than sufficient protection.  It took about half an hour to unpack and assemble.  Assembly was easy and no adjustment of the lasers were required, it was dead on out of the box.  All I can say is this is an awesome little drill press, my only complaint is that I wish I had bought it sooner.

Got a few more parts

Got some suspension mounts for my Jaguar XJS front end, namely the sub-frame mounts and sway bar bushings..




I didn't want to mock up the front suspension with worn out mounts and Amazon had good prices.

Based on some forum threads, I decided to get some wire wheels to clean the majority of the frame from the 50+ year old under coating.




It all comes down to collecting more and seemingly more parts in hopes of getting enough to finish a small part of the project.  Till next time.

Got the suspension out of the XJS!

Here are the parts I actually bought the car for.

There are several options for mounting this in any given vehicle.  Some weld it in solid, but when you do that, you loose some the ride quality that Jaguar engineered into it.  Some build brackets and bolt it solid into the frame, but you still end up with a some what harsher ride.  The third method is build the pick up points on your frame so that it just bolts in like it did in the car and that is what I plan on doing.

The rear suspension has a 2.88 Power Lock differential in it. Not bad, but I am running a 5 speed OD trans and the gear ratio's are not in my favor, so it's for sale!

I pulled the back cover and verified that it was actually a posi.

Parts, Parts, Parts and More Jaguar Parts

Well I finally gave up on the thought of keeping the straight axle under the truck.  I wanted power steer and power brakes and while converting to power disc brakes is affordable, converting to power steering isn't.   So I purchased an 85' Jaguar XJS V12!  It appears to be complete, but the interior is shot from having sit in the desert for who knows how long.  Finally I get to own a v12 engine, for a short time anyway.  It is the 5.3L (326 cubic inch) version and I'll end up selling it as well if I can even though after seeing some YouTube videos, they sound really sweet.  I'll end up selling the IRS as well.  If all goes well, I'll end up recovering my investment in the car and that will come in handy when I get ready to rebuild the front suspension.

 There is a lot of hoses under the hood of this car!

 Based on what appears to be a couple of re-paints, this cat has had a rough life, especially with no more miles that it had on it.

I have begun to disassemble the car to get the parts I want from it.  Harvesting the tender bits as it were.  It looks like all the trim is still in good shape as are the tail light assemblies. Even the TH400 seems to be good, no burnt transmission oil smell at all and the fluid is still pink.

Know anyone that needs some XJS parts???

Got a new book today!

I have decided that it is time that I learn some body work skills.  It is damn certain that my truck needs body work, so it is a bonus for me that I get to try and learn how to do it.  I understand that I am no where near competent in this area.

I set about going to different forums and wading through the crap to get the actual nuggets of wisdom that a lot of craftsmen were taking the time to pass on.  The one thing that kept coming up was a specific book that most of them stated would lay a good foundation to build off of.

So I went to my default source for buying stuff, Amazon, and got me a copy.  I have been leafing through it, trying to gain an understanding of the material presented and it makes sense.  The trick now is to actually apply some hands on and try my hands at this.  While I do not plan on making it my profession, I do want to be able to say that I did all my own body and metal work on the truck.

There are  a few dents that have body structure under them, so I may end up having to get some sort of stud gun to get those taken care of.

I have had my eye on this one, again I found it at Amazon, and it is rated well by the reviewers.


(A quick note about using online reviews to make a purchase decision.  Here is my technique. For me, if I am on the fence about a particular product, I will read as many reviews as I can find about that specific product, paying special attention to model/version numbers.   You have to realize that some people are not happy with anything and weed those reviews out, also there will be others that I call padding the ballot box.  I know you have all seen those, the 'greatest thing since fire' reviews and I get the feeling that perhaps they are perhaps not honest.  I generally try and filter out all 'hated it' and 'loved it' reviews and go from there.)

I have also heard about a stud welding adapter for MIG welders and have been trying to find more info on those as well.  It would be nice to not have to buy another limited use tool.  My concern with the adapter is that most of the stud welders use an incredibly high current (advertised 1000+ amps)  for a very short duration to weld the stud on. Where as the MIG guns are designed to have more of sustained output.  So I am a little nervous that it may put too much heat into an area.  Again more research needed. Also if anyone has any experience with the adapters, please feel free to comment and let me know.

Just ordered a few more parts...

Slowly but surely, I will get all the parts I need. After listening to the sound clip on Thrush's website, I decided to get the Thrush Fully welded mufflers from Amazon.  Love the free shipping and low prices.  From what I have read, they sound nice and deep without the resonance that you might get with Flowmaster Mufflers.  Once I get them installed (a long way down the road), I'll see if I can get a sound clip of them running on my 302.





I also got a coil.  I went with the PerTronix 40011 Flame-Thrower 40,000 Volt 1.5 ohm Coil.  This should work well with the Ford Duraspark II ignitiion that I will be running.   I will still need to run a ballast resistor from what I understand.  It seems that the Duraspark control module will run a coil without a ballast resistor (the original harnesses had a resistor wire) , but the module won't last as long.

AutoArc 130 by Hobart

In a previous post I had mentioned that I got a small 110 volt welder from Amazon.  It is called an AutoArc and is made in the USA by Hobart and uses all Hobart parts.  This was important to me since, I was worried that if I needed a replacement part, I want it to be quickly available. Well I have been using the welder for a while now. Mostly just testing on scrap metal I had laying around. The welder is capable (even if I'm not) of great welds. The one thing I did notice right away was the small one pound spool of wire that it came with ran out pretty damn quickly. So I had to get some more wire. I haven't gotten a bottle of gas yet so, I just decided to order some flux cored wire which is adequate for heavier gauge steel. I got the two pack of the two pound spools this time around.  I had considered getting the 10 pound spool since I already had the Hobart Hub Kit, but decided to wait until my skills improve.


          

I do plan on getting a gas bottle and some solid core wire when I start doing sheet metal work on my truck.  But for right now, I am still getting the drive line in and set up properly.


More to come as I progress, both on the truck and with my welding.

Ford 5R55 Explorer Transmission Issues

I had promised Andy a review on my experience and here it is. Sorry it took so long.

     My 03' Explorer had 92k+  miles on it when I got the dreaded Over Drive shudder when it shifted into OD.  I was pretty worried about it based on every thing I had read about this issue on the different forums.  I went searching for an alternative that didn't involve replacing the entire transmission (simply don't have the money for a new trans).  I stumbled across a web site from AJ1E Superior Solutions, LLC that promised to fix the issues that Ford over looked with these transmissions and at a reasonable price no less!

     After doing some research and reading numerous reviews, I decided that I would give them a try.  I contacted Andy and ordered all the parts needed to complete the fix.  The parts arrived quickly and in new condition.  I called Andy again to ask about the extra o-ring's that were in the kit because I wanted to be sure that I didn't missing anything,  He said that the additional o-ring's were extras 'just in case' some of the others get damaged during installation.  I like the thought of not having to go and try and find new o-ring's if I messed one up.  This was great thinking on Andy's part.

     I sit down and read the instructions. Read them again, went over the process in my mind several times and then read the instructions again.  The instructions were excellent, by the way.  I determined that since I didn't have access to a vehicle lift, I would just use jack stands and a floor jack.  After getting the vehicle up on jack stands, I realized that there wasn't anyway that I could do it with exhaust in the way, so I removed the H pipe and the transmission cross member from the Explorer.  With the transmission tail shaft supported by the floor jack, I was able to move the trans around just a little bit and that helped with getting room for my hands.  Once all of that was out of the way, I set about removing the servos one at a time.  There will be a little fluid leaking out of the servo bores, but nothing more than a shop towel could clean up.

    I put the new servos in one at at a time with Sil-Glide applied to all seals on both the servo and the servo covers.  Then I put everything back on, exhaust... trans cross member.... you get the idea.  Just replaced everything that I had taken off.  I also took the time to adjust the bands since the procedures were in the instructions and it only took an additional few minutes.

    Well it was time for a test drive.  Almost all of the shudder was gone!  Damn it!  So I decided that since the fluid had not been changed (to the best of my knowledge), I would change the fluid and the filter.  With the new servos and fluid change cured all but an very rare and occasional shudder.   On the advice of a good friend, I decided to add a bottle of Lucas Transmission Fix after first draining the same amount of fluid out (don't over fill your trans - not good!).

   I am super pleased to report that we have put an additional 6500+ miles on it since the fix and it runs as good or better than it did when it was new.  That included driving in the south western deserts of the USA!

   I can't thank Andy at AJ1E Superior Solutions, LLC enough for having the idea to fix an issue that Ford decided to over look.  If you are having this issue, please check out his web site for the info needed to fix your shudder!

Thanks again,
Jeff

Got a transmission... Real hot rods have three pedals!

I got an M5R2 out of an 89’ 5.0L F150.  It should do just fine behind my 302.  Now just need to measure and get my drive shaft.  Of course I will need a new yoke and from what I understand, this trans will use an AOD/C4 yoke.  That means the hunt should go quickly.

Picked up a few parts today…

I stopped by Performance Online’s shop today in Fullerton, CA and got an engine crossmember and a transmission crossmember.





Good prices, good products, and good people.  Just can’t be beat.