'79 Zephyr ES Build

[ZephyrEFI]

Yeah, I've actually been talking about my issue in this thread too:

http://vb.foureyedpride.com/showthre...oking-At/page3

they list a whole crapload of different numbers for different pumps. It must just be by application (although I don't think it's known what number goes to what application) and probably just a difference in the orifice/valve thingy.

I think my problem feels like a mechanical problem. I don't think it's a tie rod end thing either because all but the LH inner have been replaced recently. I'm interested to see what the result of the little test Jack tells me about in that thread is.

[ZephyrEFI]

Yup, it's a mechanical problem.

[ZephyrEFI]

Well... we're goin' first class all the way to fix this problem. Terminator rack and MM hybrid steering shaft! Can't wait!

[forgotn]

Sounds like a project. Should be awesome when it's done!

[82GTforME]

Well... we're goin' first class all the way to fix this problem. Terminator rack and MM hybrid steering shaft! Can't wait!

So what pump are you going with now?

Sounds like a project. Should be awesome when it's done!

Should be for sure.

I'm interested in this a little. Is this where you have to use Taurus inner tie rods to compensate for the different rack?

[ZephyrEFI]

I'm trying to find out whether the valve that determines how much assist the pump gives is easily replaceable. If so, I'll just get a reman motorcraft. Another thing I'm not sure about is whether my existing lines will work.

I thought the Taurus thing was you got Taurus outers with sn95 spindles, just because they have more thread contact. Right now my plan is to swap inners between mine and the new one, leave the outers in place, and I shouldn't even need an alignment.

[ZephyrEFI]

Well, i got a little car time this weekend. I mostly spent it doing tear-down in preparation for all the new steering stuff i have coming. I did end up ordering a new/reman Motorcraft pump. The fluid that came out of my old system wasn't that old but smelled burnt.

'87 LX 5.0L rack, lines and steering shaft all out.


Here's another look at the rag joint carnage.

I'm now quite certain that the clunk i heard when i took the car for it's first ride of the year was a chunk of rag joint breaking off and flying up on top of the header where it melted an caused a bunch of smoke.

[ZephyrEFI]

Spent some more time today on the steering redo project. I swapped pairs of tie rods between my old LX 5.0 rack and my Terminator rack. In doing that, i found it has an outer seal leak, so i get to rebuild it. No one has the seal kit locally, so I get to put the car together for a show this coming weekend, and then blow it back apart to do the rack rebuild.

Here's a look at the Fox tie rod length vs. SN95.


And here's the obligatory look at the Maximum Motorsports hybrid steering shaft vs. the stock Fox one.

Isn't the MM piece nice? It'd better be for what it costs.

So, yeah i spent some time on my power steering pump too. I had to swap pulleys, so i got the loan-a-tool from The Zone. I had to get creative to press it on past flush where it needs to be. I used an impact socket to do the job. I also spent some time cleaning up and painting the bracket and pulley. Here's the reman pump in its new home. Doesn't it look pretty?

I took out the spring/valve thingy at the pressure line fitting from all 3 power steering pumps i have on hand. The one from my old pump had the most coils and seemed to be the stiffest, so i swapped that one into my new/reman pump. Hopefully it has the desired effect of good steering feel/effort.

So now, the entire accessory drive is new/reman at this point. If you don't count the water pump.

[danco86]

And another system completely tackled. Nice, Brad.
I have that MM shaft too, I also changed my rack bushings to MM's solid aluminum ones.
The steering takes some getting used to, as there is zero play. It's almost like steering a go cart.

[ZephyrEFI]

And another system completely tackled. Nice, Brad.
I have that MM shaft too, I also changed my rack bushings to MM's solid aluminum ones.
The steering takes some getting used to, as there is zero play. It's almost like steering a go cart.

Thanks! And that's awesome. I've been saying lately driving this car is like driving a go kart compared to my DDs. Now it'll be even more so!

I did spend a little time on it yesterday. Stupid Auto Zone looked at me like i had 3 heads when i asked for the teflon seal for low pressure line. So, i had to do some searching before i found one. The guy at Napa knew his stuff though. Then, I took a slide hammer to my hollow shaft sticking through the firewall, since not really being able to reach the rack was partially the reason my old rag joint committed suicide in such spectacular fashion. I couldn't really tell but i'm pretty sure i got it to move. When i went to install the MM shaft, it was now TOO LONG. I did collapse it all the way too. All i can figure is i pulled the hollow shaft out too far. By this time it was time for dinner, so that's how i left it. I don't have any time on the schedule between now and the car show, so that's in doubt at this point. We'll see. I hope i can get it there.

[mustangxtreme]

The steering takes some getting used to, as there is zero play. It's almost like steering a go cart.

I have a Flaming River shaft and urethane bushings on my 83L and my wife complains about it being twitchy because any move with the steering wheel changes the direction of the car.

[mustangxtreme]

The steering takes some getting used to, as there is zero play. It's almost like steering a go cart.

I have a Flaming River shaft and urethane bushings on my 83L and my wife complains about it being twitchy because any move with the steering wheel changes the direction of the car.

[ZephyrEFI]

That would be a welcome change after 6 inches of play on center.

[ZephyrEFI]

Well, i got it to the show today! I took a rubber mallet to the hollow shaft and that gave me enough room to hook everything up. It turned out that I have my steering wheel about 10 degrees off, but that's easily fixed with the MM shaft. I managed to rig up something to pull a vacuum on the power steering pump using that blue plug thing that comes on top of new ones. I still have a lot more bubbling to do, I think, but the steering worked for the short trip! I'll do more bubbling when the proper fitting for the top of the pump reservoir I ordered shows up from Mityvac.

The steering feels good, WAY more precise than before, and nicely weighted. It has a little sloppiness, but i have a new inner tie rod to go in, and then i'm going to get it aligned again after i'm done with all this steering crap, so that should clear that up. Gotta love having a lifetime alignment!

Someday i might get back to the A/C project, but now that the manifold is installed onto the compressor, it's pretty obvious that the low side line and strut tower brace are going to want to occupy the same space. I'm not sure what i'm going to do about that yet.

My stupid brakes showed why i hate them and have new ones to go in on my drive to the show today. Drive for a while, one of the calipers starts to stick. That's definitely the next thing I'm going to do after the steering.

[ZephyrEFI]

Here's my dad with my kids. And a guy who refused to get out of the way.

[ZephyrEFI]

SIIIGGGGHHHHHHHH, more adventures in bodily harm yesterday. See here.

http://vb.foureyedpride.com/showthre...g-Rack-Rebuild

[ZephyrEFI]

Quick pic of my rack code before i put it back in. SPR-ZM, baby!

[ZephyrEFI]

Alright, so I've been off on another flight of fancy. I've always loved the cool mid to late '60s emblems Mercury used on their performance cars, especially the checkered flag. I figured they would be impossible to get unless i want to shell out big bucks for nice originals. Well, not so! I found a site that sells repros! So then it got me thinking. Tell me what you think.

Here's a couple examples from '67 Cyclones.





And here are my ideas. I could put this arrangement (Zephyr emblem from a 2006, i already have these) on the front or rear fenders...



And then, i would put this on the front fender below the rub strip, like on a '70-71 Cyclone.



SWEET, huh?!

Here's the site that sells them.
http://www.macsautoparts.com/?cm_mmc...RCwaAim18P8HAQ

[ZephyrEFI]

Well I sucked about as much air as i could out of the steering system using the vacuum pump, although i'm pretty convinced there are still pockets of air in there. It doesn't steer very nicely at low speeds. Once you get going though, the steering feels great, except for a little bit of a delay or gap at the top of the steering wheel. It's like before only greatly diminished. It's about an inch or less compared to 6 inches. Anyway, after all my fiddling with the tie rods and such, i figure it could use an alignment, so that may fix the problem partially or completely. We'll see. If it doesn't, i may try fiddling with the caster and see if i can reduce it further. If that doesn't do it, i'll look at solid rack bushings. I'm not that familiar with them though, and i don't know what the downside would be.

Anyway, I took it for a test drive after more vacuum bleeding of the steering system. This car seriously surprises me every time i drive it now smooth and rattle free it is. Maybe that's considering how loud it is, I don't know. i don't get to drive it often these days and i'm acustomed to a very low mile 2014 model car, so i guess i expect the Zeph to drive like crap. But it really doesn't!

[84StangSVT]

Anyway, I took it for a test drive after more vacuum bleeding of the steering system. This car seriously surprises me every time i drive it now smooth and rattle free it is. Maybe that's considering how loud it is, I don't know. i don't get to drive it often these days and i'm acustomed to a very low mile 2014 model car, so i guess i expect the Zeph to drive like crap. But it really doesn't!

Glad to hear this.....My GT is a rattlebox! I don't care right now though as the fun of driving it offsets the quirks. One day she will be tightened up and get a radio.

The Zeph is looking good bud! Glad you are getting her done piece by piece and still enjoying it while the work commences. BTW...they call them SNAP RINGS for a reason!

[84StangSVT]

UUGGHH! Stupid double post!

[ZephyrEFI]

Well, here's some work from this past weekend.

A look at the SVO/Mark VII brakes on their way out. Notice the uneven wear on the brand new rotors.


Torn down. I'm thinking about cutting out the quad shock mounts while i'm in here and can get right at them.


Here's proof positive that SVO/Mark VII axles are longer than SN95.


That doesn't really tell it that well though because the SN95 axle has longer lugs on it. So, I measured. Here's the SVO/Mark


And the SN95


The moral of the story? Don't use SVO/Mark VII rear brakes unless you want to have bigtime wheel fitment issues and brakes that function like CRAP. Another expensive lesson learned, I guess.

[ZephyrEFI]

If there's a picture that illustrates my day yesterday, it's this.


Yep. i put the car too close to the wall to get the axle out. And remember my fool's errand of cutting out the quad shock brackets? Well I wasted a LOT of time doing that yesterday. They're out, but it took a LONG time, and made a BIG mess. Not worth the trouble.

Anyway, I also found that the axle seals i bought were too big for the axle bore. WTF?! Anyone ever run into that? I didn't bother doing the parts store tour and listening to each counter guy tell me in turn "well, we'd have to order it... " I just went to Rock Auto and got some Motorcraft ones i'm sure will work. But now i have to wait to put the rear brakes together.

I also reinforced my rear brake line mounting system i invented, put some new rear wheel bearing in, and actually got lucky finding some bolts in my collection for the rear brake dust shields. Then i took a few comparison photos and called it a day.

Here's the rear caliper comparison SVO on the left, SN95 on the right.

I just hope Napa accepts the SVO calipers stuffed in the boxes as cores for the SN95 ones.

This is the SVO caliper bracket.


This is the SN95. A much stouter design!

[grabbergreen84]

Yep. i put the car too close to the wall to get the axle out.

Oh, I can identify with situations like that...

It's making me angry right now, and I've never even seen your car or your garage.

Come on, you can tell us: Did you ever consider cutting a hole in the wall?

Probably wouldn't work, because you just know that there's a stud there...

You might be able to sell those SVO calipers and brackets for more than core charge?

[ZephyrEFI]

Oh, I can identify with situations like that...

It's making me angry right now, and I've never even seen your car or your garage.

Come on, you can tell us: Did you ever consider cutting a hole in the wall?

Probably wouldn't work, because you just know that there's a stud there...

You might be able to sell those SVO calipers and brackets for more than core charge?

yeah, there would've been a stud.

I did offer some of the stuff for the price of shipping. As for the calipers, they've never worked well for me. These things need to be sent to hell.