The Green Monster

Today...
We installed the 4 lug rear in the 4 door just good enough to roll the chassis around cause it's going to the junkyard when we are done, and the axle may sell. So we didn't hook up brake lines, only 2 u bolts to axle.


When we lowered the jack it was comical to see how low the 75 4 door sat on the 45 year old, worn out, 2 door, non a/c, small bumper, light duty springs with shorter shackles. The back springs are actually a little concave now! Hey Dad, we made a lowrider! Here's a shot of the shackle difference side by side: the longer one on the left is from the 75 4 door already bolted into our 70 2 door. ( sorry bout the fuzzy pic, too much coffee!)


We got all of the brake hydraulics connected on the 5 lug rear in our 70.
I got the passenger side brakes apart and hooked up the parking brake cable and reassembled.

Differences I noticed today:

1. The flexible brake hoses that connect the axle to the body are 2 different sizes and are held in place with sheet metal clips that are also different from the 70 2 door to the 75 4 door. The clip matches the axle, they look the same, but
they are not interchangeable. Strange thing is...the 4 lug is bigger.


The other visible difference today was the brake drums. The 70 2 door 4lug had 9"x 2" drums and the 75 4 door 5 lug had 10" x 2 1/2" drums.


And here you can see the width difference:


Up next: finish driver's side rear brake hookup this coming week and start on the front suspension and steering next weekend.

Any useful input on a manual to power steering conversion?

 

Manual to power steering .... look at the new Borgeson power steering boxes for our cars .... very nice. So much better than the hinkey factory power assist set up. While you are at it, look at hydroboost brakes from later Mustangs too. You can drive both with the same PS pump.

I took the PS out of my car and am using it unassisted. It is quite good except at speeds under 10 mph, then you need a lot of upper body strength. The PS box has a lot less gear ... less turns.

 

Our Falcon has manual steering and I understand the differences in gearing.
In my S10 I installed a Monte Carlo SS Z65 Sport steering gearbox. it was only 2.2 turns lock to lock. And a Jeep center shaft to replace the rag-joint with a U-joint. The wheel input was a little firm, but the feel was amazing. Laser precise. No slop.

I am going with the factory p/s setup because I don't want manual steering, and the parts are paid for.
I will have a good complete manual steering setup for sale when I am done. I will list it for $100
If $ was not an issue (as it always is...) I would get a rack and pinion setup and a Mustang II front suspension.
So far I am only out $350 for the donor car and $40 for rear shocks.
I haven't seen a ford 8" or 9" 5 lug rear axle for less than $300 on CL.
I would end up spending a few thousand dollars if I bought each and every part individually.

 

Another reason for all the luxury options (p/s, p/b, a/c, etc) is I want my wife to like to drive this car a lot when we are done with the project. It won't have a very loud exhaust either.
If the car was just for me it would have a built 351/T56/3.80:1/MII front/T-Bird indie rear/4wheel discs/close ratio rack and pinion steering, headers and dual Flowmaster 40's But that would take much more time and money to build.

 

We solved the wife issue, bought her a 67 Firebird with an auto and A/C. With the, the Maverick will get a 5.0, T5 and 4.10 9 inch with a possible turbo!

 

Flash... A D7BE casting is most certainly for a Maverick/Comet..

B = Bronco (1970-1973)
B = Maverick (1975-1977)(D = 1970-1974)
B = Fairmont (1978-1983)


BTW in addition I did a little checking, no Bronco ever had a 250 from factory, between '66 & '77 only 6cyl were 170(std '66-72), 200(std '73-'77)... 289 was opt through '68, 302 from '69-'77...

 

Oh.
The kid I bought the car from said the motor was from a Bronco.
I know from the V.I.N. number that my car was originally a 200 and automatic.
It doesn't matter, after the #6 bearing spun and then disintegrated then #4 piston shattered and took a big chunk from the block where the connecting rod slammed into it .

The black smudge near top center of pic is the missing chunk.

These four scratch marks going down the cylinder wall are from the snapped off end of the connecting rod flopping around after failure.


Even before I tore it apart, you can see how #6 rod bearing journal is very discolored in this pic.


the block and crank were not salvageable.

This motor could probably have been salvaged if it had been shut off the second the #6 bearing left the show., But the kid was on the interstate and limped home....killing it completely...

And now for something completely different: on to the front suspension and steering.

 

Dad got the front brakes off both cars and had the spindle off one side of the 75 when I got there this morning.



It kinda sucks to go through the work of installing stuff on a car that is headed to the junk yard, but we have to be able to roll it around.

We got the front springs swapped on the passenger side on both cars.

It looks like the 75's flexible brake hose from the body to the caliper will work on the 70, I was worried about different tubing or thread sizes, we just have to swap the clip that bolts to the frame.

I think my 70 will stop really good. My 70 originally had 9X2 drums in the front and 9X1-1/2 in the rear.
From the 75 I am getting 10X2 in the rear and discs up front and adding the power boost also.

The rotors from the 75 were within spec, so we just got them turned. We have all new bearings and seals ready to go in.

We got to a stopping point because of upper ball joints that have been ordered and aren't here yet.

I think by the end of this weekend we will have all of the suspension done and the brake work under the car done.
Next week we will focus our efforts on swapping the power booster, portioning valve, and pedal assembly.

Correction to plan: I don't think we'll be done with the donor car by Halloween, but it should be ready enough to take it to the Turkey Rod Run.

 

We finished up the drivers side coil spring swap today on both cars.
I wonder why we could get a 1" sway bar for the Falcon, but for a Maverick the biggest I could find was 7/8? I guess it doesn't really matter, I'm not building an autocross car. Both the 70 and the 75 have the same size sway bars, so we decided to stick with the stock 11/16 sway bar that is on it and freshen up all of the squishy bits like the bushings and end links.

This special shock tower brace for power brakes looks really weird...

It is one of those special details that drew me to this 75 as a parts donor car. You can't see it in this pic, but the master cylinder is actually angled to the right also to get around the shock tower.

Still waiting for front shocks, upper ball joints , sway bar link kit, and bushings to come in from Rock Auto, wow! they are cheap! but don't be in a hurry...

We should be completely done with the front suspension and the brakes by the end of the week.
We are not going to start the steering swap until we get the motor and trans pulled from the 75 so we can stand in the engine bay to reach everything easily. I'm thinking while the motor is out will be the best time to do the brake pedal assembly and dash and A/C system swaps too.

Plan for next Friday: turn both cars around so they are nose to nose to start the engine pull and steering and dash swaps.

 

We got both cars turned around so they are nose to nose and got the trans pulled out of the 70 2 door.



After we got the C4 out of the Monster we cleaned it up:


The casting numbers were really hard to read even after cleaning:

Poppa Randy looked up the numbers and determined that this C4 originally came from a 68 Fairlane.

I checked Craigslist from Miami to Jacksonville and only found 2 C4's for sale by owners. The first one was $150 and they didn't know anything about it, they had found it in a barn where it has been sitting for many years. Then the other one was $700 and didn't come with a torque converter.

We have too many cars and car parts layin' around! We are selling our trans and torque converter on Craigslist for $300. I set the price pretty low because I want to sell it quickly.

Ours was pulled from a daily driver that spun a bearing in the motor. It did not leak.

The pan gasket and front seals look really good:


We have done a whole bunch of pretty straightforward un-bolt and bolt-on parts swaps from the 75 4 door to the 70 2 door so far, but now for something a little more technically difficult...
We got an AOD!!!
It came from a 90 Mustang GT and came with the shift cable and linkage, and the TV cable and detent.

This weekend we hope to get the motor and trans pulled from the 75

Stay tuned...

 

Without the servo tag you don't know what that C4 came from, casting numbers don't really mean much... If it's a 68 transmission could have been in about anything from Falcon to a LTD.... If it has a 24 spline converter then it is pre '70, in 1970 they went to a 26 spline input...

The EFI Mustang TV cable isn't anything like what will be required for a carb setup...

 

The casting number tells me the trans was originally in a 68 Fairlane. it could have been rebuilt a dozen times or never, it may have been in 10 different cars, I have no idea. It is an unknown C4 that was in my Maverick behind a 250 when I bought it.
I only tell the history I know and what I have been told and I do some research on the part and give the specs and history I know about the stuff I sell.

I will count the input splines next time I'm over there, I think it would be good info to add to my posting. Is there a preference for old car builders?

Should I be looking for a TV cable and linkage from a carbed 302? Any ideal year/model to look for?
maybe 84-86 Mustang or F150/E150?
I am looking for a small 4 bbl carb anyway, somewhere in the neighborhood of 450 to 600 cfm. would a 84-86 Mustang 5.0 Auto have the carb and cable I want?

I saw a Holley 600 on CL for $50 last week. Is that too much carb for a stock GT roller cam? I am planning on an Edelbrock performer low rise aluminum intake.

 

Nope only gives a general idea of era... I can promise you Ford didn't cast a specifically ID case for each carline...

The casting on my original, '71 Comet GT C4 is a D2OP number which is 1972 Torino(Fairlane dead after '70), I know it's orig as it has the VIN stamp on the top of trans case... That car was built in ' July of '71, was already using '72 ID...

VIN on top of case matches car...



Case casting number shows it was assigned too Torino engineering(mostly a method of cost accounting)...

 

This weeks progress:

Our ordered parts came in: front shocks, and sway bar bushings and end links.


In this shot you can see how we used a piece of heater hose on the coil spring for sound isolation.

Here's a shot of the new ball joints, lower control arms, and sway bar end links, and you can see Poppa Randy did an awesome job cleaning up and painting the spindles from the 75


Suspension swap/upgrade complete!!!

Next we want to finish up the brakes. I want the process to go as easily as possible. Since we are swapping out the dash to get the A/C vents and controls anyway, I went ahead and dropped the steering column and removed the lower section of the dash.



With all of that stuff out of the way it was pretty easy to remove the power brake booster and pedal assembly. The plywood is in the floorboard just to cover the 10x18 hole in the floor while I was working..haha!

Here's the stuff worth getting:


The plan for this coming week:
In the 70 Green Monster - drop steering column, remove complete dash, swap brake pedal assemblies, install booster.
In the 75 donor car - remove rest of dash and heater-A/C box, rig some temporary way to steer with 70 steering column without completely installing 70 dash.

 

Oh, and here's the serial number from our C4, it didn't have any ID tags on it.

I tried looking up the number, but found no information.