Lots of Mav projects coming up...

Thanks Terry

 

And we have moved to the other end. Buddy of mine who is an amazing interior guy doing upholstered panels in the trunk now. Upgrades on the interior coming as well.

 

Nice but how's the spare tire gonna fit in there?..

 

Wasn't a spare in there before this.

 

Trunk is done.

 

And we roll right from the pretty trunk stuff into dealing with some lingering mechanical problems. Solving a leaking axle seal on the 9" and finally biting the bullet and dealing with the transmission angle issue. The tunnel is simply too small in this '69.5 car for the TKX 5 speed. I cut the top of the tunnel and got it up to 1° down from over 4° down as it was. Raised it nearly 2" at the mount.

That helped some issues and caused some more. Throttle cable is too short now along with the fuel line from the injector body to the regulator on the firewall. Had to slightly notch the lower control arm mounts to clear the T pan on the 347. The injector body moved far enough forward that I'm going to have to make new mounting plates for my Monte Carlo bar. Obviously going to have to fab up a new trans crossmember. The engine pivoting forward caused the exhaust to be smashed tight to the torque arm crossmember so I removed the exhaust and I'll have t0 get some reworking done on that. I'm having a local sheet metal shop bend up a new top for the tunnel. I'll do the fitting and get it installed. Cars are so fun.

 

Just shows how changing one thing can lead to a BUNCH of other changes. Still, a vibrating driveline is miserable.

 

Interestingly enough we've never had any vibration. The problem is the transmission is very noisy. Hoping this will fix that.

 

Slowly progressing on the winter mess I've made of a perfectly good Maverick. lol... Dealing with the resulting issues under the hood from raising the trans into Tremec spec. Had to make new mounts for the strut tower braces. The engine rotated far enough forward that the Sniper didn't clear the Monte Carlo bar. New mounts move it 1" forward. I also hate sanding and polishing aluminum. Nasty business but necessary. Bunch of work for and inch. Got the new trans crossmember fabbed and in and the massive hole trimmed up. New throttle cable and fuel lines coming up tomorrow if FedEx shows up. Sheetmetal shop supposed to have the new tunnel patch done tomorrow as well.











The world's tiniest trans crossmember. Interestingly enough, the trans mount is high enough that it's almost perfectly aligned with the mounts for the crossmember so super simple to make. All from 1/4" plate.

 

Great work, and that's a very tidy trans crossmember.

 

Thanks!

 

Winter project update vid.

 

Got the tunnel patch for my boys at the sheetmetal shop this afternoon. Looks like it's going to work out pretty well.

 

Some days I hate this car. Finally got the radiator lowered. Had to notch out the front crossmember for clearance. Decided I'd feather out some chips in the crossmember and spot those in just to dress it up a bit. As soon as I started sanding the paint started flying off. Apparently it was acceptable to just paint over oily dirt and surface rust when it was on the rotisserie. Thought I had it feathered out good enough until I went to blow it off. That's when I saw a big bubble and pow, a bunch more decided to blow off. I just shut off the lights and went in the house.

 

Well that was fun. Not too bad for spray cans.