Ash's 69 R-code

[stangnet33 88]

Good to see you active with your car again Ash ! Some nice additions and the truck looks fantastic. In regards to your speedo have you considered doing the mod to install a mechanical gear set-up or getting it done. My brother checked into it for Nova about a year ago. Seems fairly easy to have done or do. The gear set was about $90.

 

[Ash 145]

Hey there Stangnet! How's yours coming along, been into it yourself?

 

I had a look into the mechanical gear set-up a little while ago but unfortunately my T56 doesn't have any provisions for it to go. Sorry for the crappy pic, it was getting dark here when I took it.

 

 

I compared my trans to one that a mate brought for his Mustang which he got from a later model Mustang. I think his is from a 00 model, not 100% sure off the top of my head. But his extension housing was very different to mine. His was shorter keeping the shifter location closer to the trans body which meant the output shaft was also shorter. His also had a magnetic pickup for the speedo drive to the left side coming off the output shaft, I think the same as in the photo you put up.

 

I looked into buying the parts to convert mine, a different extension housing and output shaft, but they are stupidly priced so I can't see that happening. I think I'd be more inclined to rig up a magnetic pickup somehow to create a pulse and go from there. A GPS unit would be less work though.

[Ray 10]

Hi Ash,

I did the Shelby drop on my S code when I still had it and it changed the ride height very little, maybe 5 mm, what it does is change the camber curve so as the car turns and the suspension compresses the negative camber increases, keeping the tyre contact patch square on the road.

If you move the top arm out with spacers you would give it positive camber, a big no no.

Ray

[Ash 145]

Hey there, Ray!

 

Is that all it really did, 5mm? So sweet F A really.

 

If that is all it is, then I may as well go ahead. The extra room inside the engine bay is worth 5mm I reckon. And you've driven your old car to my place so know just how special our roads are.

 

Hope you've been getting stuck into yours. I'm out under mine at the moment drilling out spot welds.

[Ray 10]

Nah mate, still doing jobs around the house, just acquiring parts and getting prepared.

When I drove to your place I had done the drop and I had also cut 1 1/2 coils off the front springs and had 1 1/2" lowering blocks in the rear. Occasionally it would scrape going into bad driveways but that was manageable. Only issue I had was right side rear wheel scrapped on the guard on bad bumps, diff must have been off center.

[Ash 145]

Ah, I managed to dodge a bathroom reno. The wife spent the money that was put aside on a horse instead. Can't say I was disappointed. The bathroom is fine as it is I think.

[Ray 10]

We just got a horse back from being broken in, we bred it ourselves. What sort of horse did she get?

[Ash 145]

She brought another miniature pony. She paid good money for an educated horse so that she wouldn't have to do the hard yards herself. Well she was lied to big time, it was nothing like she was told. She sold it after trying for a couple of months and cut her loses. She brought another, and the same thing happened again from a completely different person. She again tried for a couple of months but after being dragged on the ground twice, she sold it too. Now she just has one and a large hole in the pocket.

 

No going back now. This will make the purists happy.

 

 

This allowed the trans to come up a little bit but not a lot more. I'll know more when I get crossmember repositioned to see if it has to come up any more.

 

[Ash 145]

To get to the spot welds to drill them out, I cut the cross member in 3.

 

 

Which meant I had to weld it back together. I haven't done much TIG welding on mild steel and it's been about 18 months since I have had a go at it. Was happy with the result though I think.

 

 

 

And it looks like I got good penetration. I realised though I need to clean the metal surfaces up further before welding.

 

 

And after the welds were cleaned up with a roloc disc.

 

 

I clamped it into a rough position.

 

 

But it fit better with the trans support reversed as it cleared the shifter better. But I don't think this support will work unless it is modified a little as it hits the right side of the mount on the extension housing.

 

 

After I removed the cross member from its original position, I was able to raise the trans about 10mm at the firewall. Now with the cross member in this position with trans hard up against the firewall, this is how much clearance there is now. Now just to figure out exactly where the trans needs to sit and I can work out what needs to be done with the floor pan.

 

[MikeStang 247]

Man you have done some serious work to an already clean appearing car.

sucks you have to re-Do something that was supposed to be right.

[Ash 145]

It is still a sore point when I think about it. Not so much the things that went wrong that I should have known better about. That's my fault for lack of knowledge. But the things I was told to my face which in the end were utter bull shit. Such as there was no rust in this car. Yeah right.

I try not to think about it. I can't for the day to drive it again. The kids only go to school 2 blocks over and that will be enough of an excuse to get it out and go for a drive.

 

In fact Mike, it was not far from you where it came from. I just googled it and it is about 3hours. I got the car from Jena. Dad and I flew into Alexandria, drove up to Jena and then we trailered the car down to Lafayette and met the truck which took it to Los Angeles.

[RPM 1,190]

Nice welds Ash after a year and a half lay off. Keep up the good fight.

[Ash 145]

Thanks, Bob. I've done a bit of welding with the TIG but mostly aluminium. I got the TIG as a birthday present off my wife. I wanted to learn how to use one and she wanted a horse cart built. So I started on a trailer which I think I put some pictures up earlier. And then I made this for her, also out of aluminium. The springs, axles and wheels though we had shipped from the US. I made the rest.

 

 

Edited January 7, 2015 by Ash

[DRASTiK 22]

Nice work on that cart Ash. Looks good!

[RPM 1,190]

Hot damn Ash, you got skeels.

[Ash 145]

Thansk very much guys! It was a very steep learning curve. But very enjoyable!

[Mike65 475]

WOW!! nice work on the horse cart there Ash.

[Ash 145]

Thanks very much, Mike!

[Ash 145]

I made some measurements of the top loader to attempt to gauge the angle of the output shaft in relation of the pad for the crossmember mount to calculate where the pad for the T56 shold be positioned.

In order to make a little sense of my scribblings on paper, I made a basic drawing on sketchup of my reference points. To save pulling apart the top loader to find a centre of the output shaft, I printed out a copy of the gasket used the 2 side bolts as reference. For some reason it wanted to adjust one of the measurements to a crazy decimal value so please ignore that.

I found the fall from front to back of the output shaft a measly 2mm, not a lot be concerned about I think.

 

The thickness of the top loader mount is 35mm.

 

 

Here is the basic measurement for the T56

 

 

With the T56 in its current position lifted as high as it can against the firewall and the tunnel crossmember clamped into position, there is 33mm between the bottom of the mount pad and the top loader crossmember.  This means it is sitting 11mm lower in comparison to where the top loader sat in its original position.

There is still roughly 10mm of clearance above the extension housing to the tunnel crossmember which is pretty good. But with the trans siting hard against the firewall, some clearance will be needed there and continued along the tunnel.

[Ash 145]

I spent some time today working on the tunnel cross member. I sectioned out the very top of it to give the trans some more clearance. I've gained about 18mm in doing this. This should now allow about 15mm of clearance between the trans in its final position.
I still have to tidy up some of the tight corners, there's a few low points and a couple of pin holes but it's getting close. I haven't done much of this and am really enjoying the practice.

[Ash 145]

Put the cross member back in place and this is the new clearance.



I thought the T56 was sitting a bit off but the engine is sitting where it should. After a quick google I found Quicktime set the T56 5 degree anti-clockwise. Thankfully with the trans mount in backwards, it falls in line with this angle. I had to mount it backwards anyway as it is offset and cleared the trans better this way.
I placed a tape measure across the chassis rails to show the angle of the T56.



Next issue the pad for the trans mount just touched the trans cross member so I notched out a clearance and cut a piece of C-channel up to use.
Yesterday I set up my new media blaster cabinet for the first time and used it to clean up the metal. I got it for my birthday last year, in Feb, and finally got around to using it. I was worried if my compressor had enough to do the job but it did it just fine.



And welded back in



I had a brain fart at one point and forgot to turn the gas on and it made a hell of a mess of the tungsten and put shit all over the metal so I put it back in the media blaster cabinet to clean it up




 

[Ash 145]

After a bit of time cleaning up the welds I got it to this point. Some more time could be spend but I think this is getting close.











Plenty of clearance now

[Rcodenewf 44]

Just  looking at that cart Ash....well done my friend. well done!

 

John

[RPM 1,190]

Nice work Ash. I don't like paying to fill argon cylinders any more than the next guy, but I find my welds turn out much nicer if I open the argon regulator :)

[Ash 145]

Just  looking at that cart Ash....well done my friend. well done!

 

John

 

Thanks very much, John! Here's a pic of my 3 little helpers while it was under construction.

 

 

And the horses harnessed up ready to go for a drive

 

 

 

 

Nice work Ash. I don't like paying to fill argon cylinders any more than the next guy, but I find my welds turn out much nicer if I open the argon regulator :)

 

Compete brain fart. And I hadn't even had a beer yet! haha

At first I thought I hadn't cleaned up the metal enough. But when the cup was glowing red, it clicked. Thankfully I've got a short term sponsor for argon so I'm yet to pay the $300 or so a bottle that they charge. It's going to be tough when my Dad retires from work and can't get them any more.