Hey gang...
For those of you that don't know me and my mission...lol..
Short story... me, Alan (a.k.a. Silent Insomnia)... my cars iz a pair of 1982 GT-T-tops, #24 red on both originally.
GTT2 was purchased back in Dec. of '09 and hasn't had much attention yet, for various reasons. But it's in the stable, parts have been catelogued and preserved... and there will come a day. The entire car is about 98% complete with one important missing part (79 Pace, Cobra, 82 GT Air Dam Support Bar--*not the air dam..I have that*) Ok, enough with my classified... this is about GTT1!
So, I'll be editing the crap out of this till I get it the way I want it... let's start with that.
I know I know... it's a Marchal... but around here we prefer *decipticon*... word.
Ok...
So let's get this party started... this, folks is GTT1!
Sorry for the huge buildup but just like the rest of you yo-yo's I really think my car rocks quite well!
Here are a couple related posts I've made in the past couple years about GTT1.
This one is about Paint
http://vb.foureyedpride.com/showthread.php?t=86099
and this one is about the back end finish up
http://vb.foureyedpride.com/showthread.php?t=86604
..... uh yep, so here's what finally got the "rears" project off the ground. For those of you that say the 7.5 is indestructable... take a GOOD look. I believe we determined a broken spring in the carrier caused all this..but luckily... I was ready.
Ok.. so a little more about the plan...
Way back in the day (a few years ago) I was in possession of an 8.8 drum from an 86 GT. Traded it with a drag guy (no that's not what I mean!!) that had an 88' T-Bird Turbo Coupe Rear. For those of u that don't know and don't stick around long enough to find out.. that's an 8.8 with the same Varga disc calipers as the 93' Cobra...... and he wanted to swap back to drum...even swap, and I took him on his word the gears were smooth and good. They were.
How 'bout some eye candy right about now?
and feel free to chime in whenever... I'll probably be updating this for quite a while. I'm done with the project... and I have a bohemoth of pics... gonna try my hardest to spread them out.
U like??
Ok, so the plan, again was to take the 7.5 out and replace with 8.8
Here's the day we pulled the 7.5 after the internals started "crackling" during turns...lol
[IMG]http://vb.foureyedpride.com/picture.php?albumid=2344&pictureid=17983
[/IMG]
I have pics from every angle but this is what the 8.8 t-bird rear looked like when we started... like junk.
As you can see, the dust shields were bent up pretty bad... but I just took my sweet time with them like everything else...(I think the project took a total of 4 months)
and finally... (for now), this is the shot of the rear end before paint... I threw these old turbines on it after using pallet wrap on the lugs and axle ends *don't need paint all the way up in there*. This made it real easy to roll back and forth as I worked on sanding painting sanding painting sanding painting... u know the drill
Now, here I'd like to give some local credit to my buddy Joe with his 93 LX. He was gracious enough to jack up his ride and let me snap some shots of his rear brake line setup, so I could go off of it for what was about to come.
See... (you pros just follow along and correct me where I'm wrong... ya, that means u FC....lol), the old 79-85 Foxes all had a passenger line setup, for using single or dual outlets on the driver's side only for exhaust. So.. this presents a pretty good difficulty when you want to run dual exhaust, or go to any type of an 8.8 brake setup with "relative convenience". Well guess what kiddies, I ain't ur relative but ol' SI is gonna show ya how we do it down here in Texas!!!
Here's Joe's setup on his stock '93 LX. I took some of his rear "center feed" brake line as well as his e-brake setup.
This view is lookin up and towards pass side from drivers side, right under one of the mufflers. This is probably one of THE MOST IMPORTANT PICS because it shows the little hardline distribution block you will need (or really want) to find. It is NOT available from FORD!!! You will have to get under a parts car, like I did, and drill, like I did, two rivets... and cut the line if you can't seperate it from the hose. You'll prob. need a new hose anyways.
Now, also while we're on the subject with that pic above... that thing right next to the brake line mount is called a PINION SNUBBER. Yep... that's something alot of us stock guys haven't seen... at least neither of my 82's have one! Well.. GTT1 does now... but I'll get back to that.
Ok, back to Joe's stock 93, so this next pic is with camera on the other side of driveshaft, showing how rear center after crossing over between rear seatwall and snubber turns to go towards front of vehicle running along the inside of the trans tube, next to driveshaft.
after running along trans hump under back seat, the line takes a turn towards pass. side and can be easily joined into our early-model existing passenger line...
Easy... right??
Ok, and one final pic from Joe's 93... we have a pretty good pic of the linkage under his e-brake area.... again, we'll come back to this.
So, back to the task at hand right?? I'm sure so many of you can relate to how the scope of a project can grow... and grow.. and grow. Well, certainly or u prob. wouldn't be here like me.
Well, this is the old setup... gas tank has big ol' dents on both sides... everything is stock under here, except I had gone ahead with the dual stock h-pipe setup recently and had just made a workaround to ... ahem... work around the rear brake line issue... probably again, like most of you.
Now, I took ALOT more pics than I'm posting... and I really am trying to narrow it down, but this is a good shot showing the positioning of the stock control arms, w/o an axle in place.... OMG, I just thought of something I'm going to spill the beans on later that will be a LIFESAVER for anyone doing a similar rear-end conversion.
Again, old setup, once the rear was removed.
Ok, now... this is an even closer shot of what I'm calling the rear upper frame rail (not sure if that's right but I've been back posting for a day now and no-one's corrected me yet!)... hehe
This section is important to know as this is where we'll mount the PINION SNUBBER and run our new brake line, and mount our rear brake distribution mount.<--gotta stop doing that.stop.
Ok, now this next shot gives you a better idea of the problem with pass. side brake line cars.. again I think (all 79-84or85 cars)all 86-93 with single exhaust?
So what happens is once the rear is compressed to ride height, there's almost no way around that right side exhaust hump to get to any distribution block modified, much less the stock one that sits on the 7.5 axle housing RIGHT NEXT TO IT!
Ok.. back to the fun stuff.. remember those EBC dimpled black rotors??
Oh yeah!
This is the replacement tank I picked up somewhere... can't for the life of me remember where but it's in very very good shape, in and out. I taped off the openings with gorilla tape before sanding the bottom a bit and then coating with a several lights coats of flat black, sanding in between coats. It came out pretty good but I just did the bottom so hopefully won't bother the integrity of the tank, humidity, moisture, all that. This shot is BEFORE the paint...
At this point I still don't believe I thought there was much progress... it just goes SO SLOW...
This is the rear all ready for cleaning/stripping/cleaning, etc with exhaust and control arms removed, everything taped off that it staying the way it is..*left shocks in cuz I'm lazy like that*..
Here's my buddy walking by.. as he's sanding, thanks again Jacob for all the help! Dan too!
Ok... so, after just a few minutes of DAYS AND DAYS OF BACK BREAKING CLEANING!!!!... here we have... a CLEAN 82 underbody! Voila! (oven cleaner x 10 cans + brush divided by 4 mixings of simple green - about 40 rags = CLEAN.
.....................
SI
Connect With Us