It's been quiet around these parts

Nothing new to report.  I've been driving the Beast but haven't been working on her much.  All my projects have been on hold for a bit.  Winter and fall time are usually quiet anyway.  I'll still be posting anything I do to the Beast here but it will be a bit quiet for a bit.

Running on two legs

I'm sure you all know by now but the Beast was only "one legged".  Meaning, when I stepped on it, only one wheel would do work.

Downsides:

• When breaking traction around corners, the 'correct/recovery' time was hard to pin down, so it would make me fish tail more than I wanted to.
• It is harder to hook - meaning, it was harder to get traction from a non-rolling start without just peeling out.
• It's dumb and looks stupid when only one wheel burns out.

I wound up getting an Eaton Trutrac limited slip for the Beast.  Apparently, these ford 9" rear ends are pretty easy to mock around in, so let's do this.  It also helps that Jacob, the guy who actually knows what he is doing, will be doing the same thing to his cougar as well!.

Here are the specs of the old 9":

• 3.00 gearing
• conventional non-lock
• original...the differential fluid was probably never changed

Here are the specs of the new one:

• 3.25 gearing
• Eaton Trutrac limited slip

Enough typing; here are some pictures:

First step, Take the axle(s) out!

This is when I realized the drum brakes could use some servicing....let's just punt that down the road for now though.

Gah, everything is so freakin' dirty.  I tried to hold my breath as a miasma of brake dust formed around me.  I had eye protection at least.

This thing was actually pretty easy to pop out.  Just a couple of bolts holding the axel plate to the housing and it pops right out.

So on the axel(s), you'll see an axel backing plate! (note the direction...because I sure the hell didn't and it costed me later)  After that, it is the ball bearings that all it to spin freely in the axel housing.

Might as well replace those!

Summit.  I love this place.  My bank account doesn't though.

So here is my shot of my old 9".  That entire thing is coated in a solid layer of....grime.  Probably 30 years worth too.  I have to pop all those bolts off and drain the gajillion year old goop from out of there.

Thar she blows.

Here is something interesting; this differential gear oil STINKS.  The best way I can describe the smell is if a robot baby pooped its diapers and then died in the diapers only to be found in a metal baby robot coffin 30 years later.  It is strange how much gear oil like this can stink.

My sincerest apologies to Jim; because between Jake and me, there were about 6 quarts of old gross differential oil just stinking up the shop that day.

But above you see the old one out. (and some other parts)

Now it is just waiting for a brand new one to go in!  And some fresh gear oil too!

Box o goodies.  Non-synthetic gear oil for the new differential, some new bushings and a few other things.

So now the fun part!  I have to get those bearings off before I put the new ones on.   A careful hour with the grinder and everything was cut off.

Those are still the old bearings, but See that plate?  When I finally got the new bearings pressed on (Jacob operated the hydraulic press for me), I realized I put those damn plates on backwards.  The plates are beveled, so if they are backwards, it will press against the bearings and prevent the axel from spinning.  Of course, I found this out all the hard way.

Insert me spending another good amount of time CUTTING those stupid plates out.  TWO runs to Summit later, I finally got plates that fit correctly and were fortunately horse shoe shaped, allowing me to put the axel in first.

Fast forward 45 minutes later of pouring 2.5 quarts of molasses (gear oil) and boom, new differential is installed and ready to rumble!

The car is firmly planted now.  It just feels better.

This was a quick update because I'm still pretty busy; but I'll keep up to date on my progress.

Up next:  New Transmission Cooler and lines!

Better Vision for the Beast

Holy hell, I'm back!

Woooo!

It's been awhile!

• Vacations
• Super amounts of work-work
• Beast was sleeping
• 100+ degree temps

I was pretty busy the last couple of months and a good month of that was me just LOOKING for a damn windshield replacement for the Beast.  Let's get into that mess, shall we?

A Crack runs through it

So, for a while, there was a small crack on the windshield.  No biggie I thought to myself and put off getting it repaired.

Welp! Guess what happened?

It was a solid million degrees out one day (don't worry, it was a dry heat) and I had the Beast parked out front. I put up the oven grade sun deflector up and left the Beast for the day to let her get a sun tan.   I came back to see that crack has grown to span 90% the width of the windshield.  Literally from one side to the other.  Bonus points: It was perfectly eye level too

Time for a new windshield.  That shouldn't be too hard, right?

Initial Search

Here is the thing about, um...undesired cars, like the Beast; no one makes things for this car anymore.

• Local places couldn't find any replacements.
• RockAuto's suppliers were out. 
• Macs/Dearborn Classics/etc - Fresh out.  ($200-$400 ranges)
• National places basically told me I was S.O.L.

Junkyard Search

At this point, I was starting to get worried.  Time to start hitting up junk yards.  After some research, the windshields that would fit the Beast includes:

• Body Type 56: 1971 to 1974 - LTD, LTD Brougham, Custom and Galaxie 500, all 2 door, hard top versions
• Body Type 60: 1975 to 1978 -  Custom 500, LTD pillar hard top, LTD Landau and LTD Brougham pillar hard top, all of them 2 door versions.

So, I called around - even got some hits!  All fairly cheap too ($50-$250 before shipping)!

Here is the thing - if you aren't doing it yourself?  Junkyards want NOTHING to do with you when glass is involved and here is why:  Glass needs to be cut out by someone that knows what they are doing (otherwise the glass will be damaged) and it also needs to be 'crated' and shipped properly.  All of this is work that junkyard folks do not want to do.

With the junkyard idea shot down, I decided to resume my search for windshields.  

I'm terrible at negotiations and that VintageGlass.com guy is an asshole

I stumbled across VintageGlass.com and decided to see what they have.  I shot the guy an email....

He responded!

$995???  That is BEFORE tax, not to mention shipping is usually another $250.  Yeah friggin right.  Yeah, I'm sure it is his "last" NOS one too.  (NOS = New-Old Stock)

Jim suggested I tried to haggle, I mean, what is the worst that can happen?  I decided to give it a shot.  Since Other sites that used to have the windshield in stock was around $400-$500 shipped, I decided to try that....

I don't know why I went full UK with the Cheers thing.  I never write that.  Why did I write that?

Anyway, here was the response:

(the 'J' is supposed to be a smiley face emoticon)

(My reaction)

Hah, I get your point buddy.  Curious, I looked up more on this company and specifically the person I was dealing with and it turns out a few other people have had 'fun' interactions with the guy.  Either way, I suck at negotiations.  It was worth the shot though.

Cheers?  Sigh.

Anyway, back to my search.

eBay to the rescue

Yes, eBay!  I found a shop that had glass made by the company AGP made specifically for the Beast.  BK Classic Autos.

When all was said and done, total price after taxes and shipping: $920.

Ugh, welp.  Let's go ahead and fast forward to installation.

It arrived!

Now it is in!

 Thank friggin' god that is over with.  The new windshield looks fantastic.  It has a slight tint as well.  No divots, dings or cracks.

Moral of the story:  If you see a ding? Get that FIXED ASAP.  $90 can turn into several hundred (not to mention downtime) within a day.

NEXT UP:

I just gave the Beast two legs (limited slip).  I have pictures and everything, I'll be putting that up next week.  I am also cleaning up and replacing the rear drum assembly here soon as well.    Stay tuned for that fun.

Extending my throw

I haven't been able to do a ton of work lately but there has been progress at least!

Two things were accomplished:

• Make the column shift ... shift normally. (easy)
• Re-hook up the tranny's kick-down (supposed to be easy but ohmygod)

Extending the 'shift throw'

So after reattaching the column shifting; the arm is so small that not only does it not match up with the P R N D 2 1 letters any more,  I have to precision shift it in micro-inches;  I can "throw" it from Park to friggin D1 in now less than an inch's worth of movement.  Ugh.   This means the shift arm is too small.

Solution - GET A BIGGER ARM!

The old shift arm.

Got a new universal one from Summit.  See all those swiss cheese holes?  My shift linkage will go into one of those holes.  (SPOILER -it will be the last one on the right)

Easy peezey - just drill those holes out a bit and everything fits.

Pretend the foreground is in focus and go "Wow Mike, great job."

Boom! Now when that orange needle is on the 'D', that means I'm actually in drive now.  Which is good.

So now my only issue is that I still reach for the ghost "floor' shifter whenever I want to put it in reverse.

Kick down the jams

So I had to disconnect my kickdown sometime back when switching to the new throttle body.   It just didn't fit or reach correctly.  Nor did the throttle body have the kick down linkage I needed.

What's a kick-down?  On my old automatic transmission, let's say I'm in 3rd gear and I step on the gas to pass someone - the kickdown would get engaged and "kick down" the gear from 3rd to 2nd, giving me MORE POWER! Or hell, even 2nd to 1st if I'm at a low enough speed.   

So solution?  Get an aftermarket "kick-down" cable, hook up brackets to the throttle body and at the transmission area.  

Friggin Lokar was selling one of these for like 100 dollars. YEAH RIGHT dudes, way to be the MONSTER CABLE brand of car parts.  (CLICK THAT LINK, I'M NOT EVENING FOOLING HERE) 

Instead, I turned to eBay and found a knock off one for 30 bucks!  Boom.

Rad.

K...so kickdown lever is pretty simple, I just need to find that area on the C6 where the trans-cable-bracket goes...should be simple enough.

Kay - trans-cable-bracket located.  Now let's locate that area on the C6

Found it.  Difficulty, the space around it is only big enough for my finger tips to get too.  Also, it is literally in a little cubby space.  No wrenches allowed here!

4 or so hours later....I successfully, threaded a bolt into a nut, securing a bracket in place.

That is 60 minutes, plus another 60 minutes, plus another 60 minutes, PLUS ANOTHER 60 MINUTES.  And probably more!

That is 4 hours of me, on my back, under a car, crud on my face, with my hands and arms twisted into some exorcist-movie-demon like pose, tickling a goddamned bracket-nut into place.   I'm sure there is a life analogy to be found here.

FRIGGIN TADA

  

Guys, just look at that bottom nut.  Notice it is in a cubby hole? No wrench is getting in there.  It was basically me, shoving a screw driver in there to wedge it into place while I somehow managed to double-swivel-to-hex-nutdriver the top bolt into place...while holding the screw driver in place with my cheek.

And that's the kickdown lever part, in place.

And that is the throttle body end.  Imagine this is after I got it all tightened/clean up.

Measured out the wide open throttle as well as full kick down engagement and made sure ONLY at wide open throttle would I engage full funky kick-down.

What's next?

A few things. 

• I snagged a magnehilc gauge, I need to test airflow on the scoop while at high speeds to make sure it is actually getting air flow.  
• I need to test if I have enough air flow going through the scoop while under load.
• Complete my arduino project to live-dyno my car.  
• Put in bench seats.
• Put in new carpet.

Stay tuned!

Shifting mindsets

But first...

2 out of the 5 shop/office dogs watching me work.  Not mine but they are all awesome.

Sorry, just had to throw in some pictures of dogs.  Okay, on with update.

Another update Guys!

Wait wait, just listen, some cool stuff happened!

I solved the weird cut out issue! 

New headliner installed! 

Column shifter is in and the floor shifter is OUT!

WHICH MEANS I CAN PUT IN BENCH SEATS AND NEW CARPET!

I'm excited. It will be nice to get the interior all purdy like.   Kay - on to the update.

CUT OUT ISSUE:

Remember when I was saying the car would just die for a second - it happened about 3-4 times?

yeah, that was me completely forgetting to tighten down the negative terminal when I rewired the gas tank stuff.  It's tightened down and I'm back to 14v too.  *sigh*

NEW HEADLINER.

My wife informed me that she was tired of parts of the headliner flapping down and slapping her in the face while we drive.  Yeah, I guess that is a bit much - it was time to get that fixed before Summer hit.

I snagged an already stitched kit from eBay, specifically made for the LTD. Same color, matching fabric, etc.  Boom.

It was time to take it to Troy, of Aces Upholstery. What I didn't have were replacement sails for the rear sides.  But Troy said he would figure something out.

Time for some before pics:

Rear sails are thrashed.  Check out the Frankenstein's monster stitching up top.

Trim is gone so there is a fat gap between them and the frame too.

And of course, the headliner is just drooping down.  My wife said she was afraid a spider was going to drop down on her.  I reassured it that it would be dead at least.

Yeah - it is time.  Off to see the wizard.

A day or so later....

Check out that rear sail too!  No gap either.

 Nice!!!

Time to go enjoy and -

Then it snowed.  #SPRINGINRENO

Moving on.

COLUMN SHIFTER TIME

The below pic is from some time ago; but on the right side, there is the floor shifter.  It is also my anti-theft device!  Because no one else except for me knows how to properly shift it out of park.  Why? Because it takes the exact right of finesse, patience and force.  Also, apparently it was completely disconnected from the frame; it was only carpet and shift cable that was holding it down.  So there is that...

When I got the new steering column from a dude on the east coast (aka rust bucket land), he sent me his shift linkage as well.  It isn't a direct match and he didn't have the shifter arm that was attached to the transmission but WE CAN MAKE IT WORK!

I HATE YOU I HATE YOU I HATE YOU I HATE YOU UGH

I did some initial measurements and with the available brackets, I need to extend the linkage about 1.25" inches.

A good screw will make everything better.  

Used the death wheel to cut the screw to the appropriate size.

Snagged a replacement shifter grommet from ebay, so I splatted it on to prevent any chooching.

K - so pretend there is a fat red arrow pointing...wait, let me just ms-paint one really quick.

There - that is where part of the linkage attaches to the steering column.

REMINDER: WEAR YOUR DAMN EYE PROTECTION

Of course the one time I don't have goggles under the car, a small metal rod decided to slowly pivot, ever so slightly, until it butterfly kissed my open eyeball.  *smooch*  

Okay - so I got all the linkage installed and everything actually fit nicely.

[Now pretend there is a picture of the new linkage all welded together and installed.]
WOW THAT LOOKS GREAT MIKE!


Anyway...

So it worked! The column shifter shifted fine. One shifty issue though - the shifter arm on the C6 transmission is the aftermarket version and it's "Throw" is very tiny.  What does this mean in english?  It means when I shift from one gear to another, instead of a nice little gap/space between each shift, there is a tiny, minuscule one and without fine muscle control, I will shift it straight into drive from park.

No sweat though, I can snag an adjustable arm from Summit for around 20 bones.

So check this guy out:

Good riddance shifter and gross cables.

Aw, much better.  I placed some sound deadener over the open gaps to prevent noise and whatever else escaping to the cabin.

No more janky floor shifter!

Tada!  Check out that 'Murica rag up top.  hell yeah

Next up?  Bench seats and brand new flooring for the Beast!

They need a little TLC...(or a seat cover)

Then when that is done - get new upholstery for both front and back seats and door panels.   ...and weatherstripping for the doors...and whatever else.

Woohoo!

BUT WAIT, THERE'S MORE!

Checkout my buddies update on his Cougar.  (This is one of the two partner's in crime that helps me with my stuff)  He just got his racing 427 with new exhaust and EFI conversion friggin running!!

The dude is a perfectionist; you'll notice the care and time he takes to do things right and make them look pretty.  Go check it out!