April 9, 2006 - Starting the Drivetrain Install
(1)
On Sunday April 9 we walked into the garage after a 3 week break.
Our planned break worked out perfectly because that gave Uncle Joe
plenty of time to get the oil pan welded. Our goal for Sunday
was to get the oil pan installed and start the drivetrain
installation.
Here's a few pictures of the newly welded and painted oil pan.
I was impressed with the way the oil pan turned out. It looked
a lot better than that cob job I saw in the HP instructions.
My only concern was bolt clearance, and I'd soon find out if that
would be a problem. Installing the oil pan went smoothly, we
put the new gasket up in place and held the oil pan up while
inserting the bolts. The bung placement was perfect and
allowed plenty of clearance for the bolts on the front of the pan.
Since we were happy with the oil pan install we put the steering
rack back on. When we took the rack off back on March 18, we
noticed that the driver side bushing was cracked. Dad picked
up a new one and we installed it when we put the rack back in place.
We ended up using a hammer and block of wood to push the rack onto
the QA1 K-member, it was a slow process but eventually the steering
rack slid into place.
With goal #1 complete we turned our attention to the drivetrain
and we had plenty of time left in the day to make a good dent in the
drivetrain install. The first order of business was to install
the Fidanza aluminum flywheel. During our break I stopped by
Dad's house and we pressed in the dowels. We had some doubts
about which dowel hole pattern to use but we figured that the 11"
clutch dowels would use the pattern with the largest diameter and we
ended up guessing correctly. We also solved another issue that
we noticed some time before. The pressure plate to flywheel
bolts are not the same on 10.5" clutch setups as those on the 11"
setups. I ordered the larger diameter bolts from Randy
Stinchcomb at Liberty Ford in Baltimore, Maryland (410-655-2000).
Randy's been in the parts business for a few years and can answer
just about any question concerning Ford parts. Randy sent out
the correct bolts part #N808969-S100 and we got them well before we
were ready to install the pressure plate.
As we were holding the flywheel up to the crank we noticed
something odd. Only a few of the holes lined up. We
thought we could just throw the flywheel up there and start cranking
the bolts and were suprised when the holes didn't line up. At
first we thought they sent us the wrong pressure plate but we kept
messing around with it. We put the Fidanza piece on top of the
stocker and noticed that those holes didn't line up either.
The picture below is dark but the Fidanza flywheel is laying on top
of the stock unit. We were able to put in 6 of the 8 bolts but
the other two holes were off.
Finally we got smart and starting rotating the Fidanza flywheel
to see if the situation got any better. At first we saw more
of the same, but after a few tries, the holes lined up. We
absolutely no idea that the holes were not placed evenly around the
circular pattern.
