Post #51, 8/17/14 Ford 8" Rear End Rebuild

 

65 Mustang Restoration

Since the bodywork is making progress, I figured that since we plan on installing the suspension when I get it back this Fall, I should get started on some of the time consuming items that'll need to be done. So, over the last couple of weeks I decided to tear into the 3rd member for the Ford 8" rear end, and have been doing a bit here & there. 

  Over the last couple of years I have been able to acquire a couple of extra 3rd members,,, and when I saw the double rib on this at the stock car auction, I was kind of excited,, I won it for $15,, he, he, he,,, It may be ugly now, but I know what it can & will look like when it's done. All it was missing was the 2 locking tabs for the carrier bearing adjusters,,, which I have spares of. 

I disassembled everything, cleaned up the gook & grease the best I could, took it home & handed it off to Brent who then blasted the daylights out of it,,, boy did it turn out nice.
 

  
Here is the collection of parts I have accumulated over the last couple of years, all for this build. (just because I haven't posted anything, doesn't mean that I wasn't still working on this project).

Though the car came with an awesome 2:79 rear gear,, I wanted to spunk it up a bit, but without killing the road-tripping ability & gas mileage,,, so I bought a New 3.25 Gear from "staticz2229" the guy on ebay I have bought all of my gears & bearing sets for years,, great parts and great prices & service (Ames, Iowa).

Took the housing back to the shop & had Waldo give it a nice coat of the Red Oxide Primer(with hardner). Before he shot it, I had already installed all of the new bearings & races, so there'd be less of a chance of messing up the paint. I prepped the seal surface on the yoke before painting it with "Eastwood's" Brake Grey paint. 
 

This is the like-new 8" Posi carrier that I got on ebay for only $100, compared to the normal $385. The guy switched to a 9" which worked out great for me,, Nice looking piece!
 

Several years ago while building several 9" gears for the race car, I built a little jig to hold the pumpkins while setting up the gears. It's just a simple little item, but it sure works nice. Though it's built for 9" pumpkins, I found out that I could also use it for the 8" pumpkin.
Works just fine.

These are all of the parts for the pinion section,, before & after assembly. When assembling a pinion with new gears, we adjust the pre-load to 20-30 inch lbs.,,, (which you basically check by holding the housing & adapting an inch-pound torque wrench to the pinion nut socket & turning,,, seeing how much pressure it takes to turn the whole pinion). Since I had oiled up the bearings, I set the pre-load to only 20 inch lbs.
 

 

Next the ring gear & carrier(posi) are installed & adjusted with a .012" backlash (how far you can move the ring gear back & forth without moving the pinion gear). And with everything torqued down (65 lbs. on the cap bolts),,, you grease up the teeth, rotate the pinion(holding as much pressure as you can on the ring gear) until it contacts the greased up section(forwards & backwards) a couple of times,, then check out the patterns on both sides of the ring gear.

 

Note,, when setting up the gears, it easiest to leave the large O-ring off of the pinion section until final assembly,, helps when you have to try different shims. 
  I started off by using the original pinion shim and ended up using a shim that was .005" thinner, and this is what the patterns ended up looking like,,, needless to say,, I was very happy with these patterns.

And here it is after Final Assembly,,, all prettied up & ready for some cruise'n.

Here's a nice 3rd member holder that came with an old 9" gear I had,, but it'll also work just fine for the 8" pumpkin. Great for storing the gear until it's needed.
 

While working on several rear ends on newer Ford Explorers & Escapes I notice that their fill plugs had a nice magnet built into the plug,,, figured that would work very nicely for me also,, so here's what it looks like & the Ford Part #.

 

I hope this was helpful to some of you out there,, it was fun fixing one of these up for something other than a race car,,, and to be honest,, this was my 1st Ford 8" rear end setup,,, but it's really no different than a 9" gear,, very simple to do,, just have to take your time.

 

Till next time,,, cya

 

 

Post #51, 8/16/14 Bodywork & Door Deadening

65 Mustang Restoration

Stopped by to check on the bodywork progress and was very pleased with how it's coming along. The quarters, roof, rear valance, and deck lid are pretty much ready for final primer. The doors have been removed & Wald had me take them home so I could install the sound deadener.

 So before Waldo gets rock'n on the doors, we thought it would be best for me to install all of the Extreme Fat Mat Sound Deadener inside of them, since our goal is to have this car sound more like a Beamer when you shut the doors, than a hollow sounding 65 Mustang. Unlike Dynamat,,, the Fat Mat is a 70 mil thick product, which is about twice as thick as the Dynamat was,, and another benefit of the Fat Mat is the cost,, about 1/2 the price,,, and boy does it stick!

Had to tape up the edges of the access holes to stop cutting my arms all up (very sharp)
 

I am a believer of doing a very thorough job when I do something, so therefore I covered as much of the door's surfaces that I could,, and believe me, it's not easy getting to the hinge end of the doors(a large flat-tip screwdriver was involved). 
  The pieces on the outside are there just to show you some of the the areas that matting would be placed on the inside of the panel that the interior door panel attaches to.
 

  
Here are a few pics of the finished door. A total of 4 lbs. of matting went into each of the doors,,, which bring the total footage of matting up to approx. 170 sq. ft. installed on the car so far,, with just a bit more to go.

Here's a real time saving tip for everyone,,, each time I measured out a pattern for the 1st door I was matting,,, I made a reverse pattern for the 2nd door that I was going to do next,, made life so much easier!  I coded each piece so I'd know where it went when I was ready for it.

Well thank goodness that's done,,, now on to the rear end pumpkin rebuild,,,,