Well she is back on 4 tires. 8” is under it for the time being but is actively advertised for sale. I want to get the driveline installed so I can measure some stuff, make sure the clutch works, headers fit, figure out a radiator… I also need to figure out a 4 pt cage. The goal to have the trunk bars follow the roof / rear window line and pass through the packaging tray openings. Probably going to end up having to find someone locally that can bend tube.
Well as luck would have it I sold the T10 for good $ today. So now I need an appropriate toploader. Willing to drive a bit for the right piece so if anyone knows of a 1 1/16 - 10 input, 28 output, 14” tailshaft length, wide flange let me know. Up in the air wide vs close ratio. I feel a close is probably better given the 331’s motivation and 4.11 rearend ratio. Figure I will call Dan Williams next week and see what having him assemble one with a reproduction tailshaft housing will cost… I probably don’t want to know.
That’s what I did in my 57 Ford. You can use the backseat if you wish but I choose not to and built a shelf for the rear. It’s an nhra legal 5-point bar also.
Welp. Looks like I am going to make myself a toploader. Bought this heap from FB marketplace today for a few hundred bones. Got it home and stripped down to the case. Outside of the case , shift rods and actuators everything else will more or less end up brand new. let Project Toploader commence
So Saturday I took a bit and mocked up headers and starter on the motor to make sure everything would clear. As you can imagine interferences - of course. last year I popped for this spiffy Powermaster ultra clockable, performs magic and makes old women weak in the knees starter… Well once mocked up and Doug’s headers installed no bueno. Clocked it the one hole inboard and it hit the block. so today I came home from work and did a little engineering, a bit of ciphering, some layout and a smidgen of machining. Whala. All is right with the right side of the engine. One special note… notice the 1/4-28 set screws in the adjacent holes to support the very thin wall created by the new intermediate threaded hole. Now to flatten the perfectly good and pricy header on the drivers side that sits against my cylinder head..
I got one of those mini high torques at NPD went on with no issues with my Doug’s..not the drivers side shock tower and the passenger side frame rail.. I would also highly recommend you have a good steering box before ya bolt those on…would suck having to pull all that out to replace…from someone that needs to do it haha
Monday I bolted the flywheel and clutch assy to the back of the motor after sweeping the bellhousing in and then lowered the motor into the engine bay. First time an engine had been in this car since 1998. It was then that I realized I had virtually no room for a radiator - water pump nose to core support is right at 4.5”. So I ordered a short waterpump and associated pulleys. I also spoke to Dan Williams and learned he is sold out of original comet / falcon toploader tailshaft housings. He also told me that the reproductions he was having made (like the Kee part) are kaput. The foundry owner passed and whoever took over wasn’t meeting his requirements. Sounds like Dan is winding down. No more website, no email, no fax. If you want something you call him and if it is more than one or two items you snail mail him a list. I tried calling David Kee 3 times last week and week before and sent 1 email. Zero replies about his tailshaft housing availability. So with that info I went shopping… $450 later this arrived yesterday. As of the other day there was a gentleman on Facebook marketplace in Akron, OH with two for sale for $400 and $450. I ordered all of my trans parts from Kee last week via his online store and as of today he has not charged my card. Not sure how long it will take for him to do so. I have been told “a week” by a few ppl.
Sometimes you gotta pay the piper to keep the project moving forward. Looks like you are making steady progress, though-- always a good thing.
Shifter and install kit arrived yesterday so last night I threw the tailshaft housing on the mill and D&T’d the bosses to mount the plate. Used a a few pieces of SS (old NM AR Service rifle barrel) for spacers. Came out well though this little mill is almost not big enough for such work. Just need to get some longer lower fasteners and make sure I remember to seal the middle one when I install since it passes through the housing sidewall.
That does not sound good. At one point I thought about getting a toploader + GV o/d from David Kee when I converted from a 3sp but got dissuaded by my cousin (entirely my fault. Should have listened to my gut feeling); instead I opted for the McLeod 5sp which was a huge mistake and I realize now another box change is likely in the future, but if these two are winding down it looks like a TKX or a T5 (I do not have your knowledge on the engineering side and where I am there are very few machinists with a clue about these things). Sigh...
Well after a bit of a wait everything (but a front bearing support) arrived for the toploader. Everything comes coated in dried RP so it needs a soak, a scrub and a good rinse and dry. Few hours later and we have a pretty much brand new close ratio small block toploader. The billet shift forks are sweet too. Everything went together perfectly, endplays were good, no modifications required. The bearing retainer is a speedmaster piece and dimensionally is great, machined finishes are nice. Fits the insert in the QuickTime bellhousing perfectly at 4.850. The snout fits the throw out well too. Material seems a bit soft though. Dents pretty easily. But I was concerned shopping elsewhere as advertised dimensions were all over the map for the OD that fits the bellhousing. Still needs a final exterior cleaning, coat or two of primer and then a topcoat. Yoke should be here Wednesday. next up hopefully my water pump arrives this week and I can finish the front of the motor and move on to figuring out rearend width to get a 9” housing ordered.
Got the transmission installed last weekend. Wife did a good job operating the jack and not sending me to the big drag strip in the sky. Been working out the clutch linkage this week. I have an open tracker roller z bar and rod setup. Have some interferences to correct so I can get everything running in straight lines and then maybe the pedal won’t take a gorilla to depress. Sure hope it isn’t an issue with the pressure plate. I did go to a billet yoke for 1350 u joints. It clears the tunnel, not by much though…. Ended up needing to move engine forward about 3/4 - 1” to make trans mount holes and tailshaft threads align. That put me at 5.5” from front of water pump to core support. More on this adventure next…
Now for the saga of how the heck do you fit a man sized radiator AND an electric fan in this pig… well really, you don’t unless you use it as a pusher or you butcher the core support and use a later (wider) radiator… both of which I don’t want to do. so once that trans was installed and mounts buttoned up I measured 5.5” to the core support from front of water pump. Realize I had already installed a FoMoCo short “hotrod” pump that gives me another 1.5” of clearance. I was at NPD buying the correct throw out bearing (cause my Centerforce came with a T5 type bearing) and I said might as well get this thick cold case radiator and fan combo… so here we are…. No bueno. 2.5” from WP to radiator and the electric fan and shroud is close to 4” (I have no idea where they get this 6.75” clearance requirement deal). I also have a factory shroud and 5 blade fan… the shroud is for a thinner core radiator to sit under the top tank. So that looks like crapola… I am fairly certain I have an over abundance of cooling capacity so I reckon I will just flip the fan blade and use the electric fan as a pusher…. Do I like it? No. Do I want a fan on the engine? Not really. so here we are for anyone working on a 64/65 Comet or Falcon in the future and wondering how much room you really have… taint much friends…
I had to do the very same tailshaft swap to install a top loader in my Comet with a factory hump in the floor . What I remember being a treat was the OEM trans mount , a mini 1/4 leaf spring .
oh yes the leaf spring mount… the 1350 strange yoke clears by like half a finger to the tunnel. So I have a legitimate concern about this thing twisting under load and smacking the floor… notice that the bottom leaf of my rear mount has been welded between the mounting bolts. No idea how that happened but found it way back in the 80s that way and welded her up.
If I can recall from the memory bank , a 64-66 Falcon / Mustang mount will fit and not have the spring . I know I found something that working , just can’t pull it out of the mind at the moment . Mine would hit the floor pan with a go pedal to the floor bang shift .
Comet / Falcon are the same. Not sure on the Mustang as I have never looked at using the mount. Nor an aftermarket mount if available.
Been a minute since sharing but I have been chipping away at the Cyclone. I spent roughly 2 weeks straightening out the clutch linkage situation - this opentracker system is not just a bolt in and go swap. First the Z bar needed to have the pedal side arm bent toward the inner fender - I probably tweaked this 4 or 5 times to get it where I wanted it. Truth be told the upper arm doesn’t look like it was fixtured well. It is twisted and not square to z bar tube where welded on. Not sure if this is a modified aftermarket piece of made by opentracker. Either way plan on putting some time into it. I ended needing to place a thick spacer / washer between Heim joints and pedal and z bar mounting points to eliminate binding and interference at those points too. The upper rod now runs true between the two points with no binding. For the frame mount the nut used to affix the pivot stud prevents you from pushing the bracket to its extremes on the frame. I ended up using a hole saw and cutting an access hole. So the lock nut wasn’t hitting the inner fender and I could align it straight. I put a rubber plug in the hole after done to keep stuff out. The biggest challenge really was the bracket for motor side pivot. With the QuickTime you have to make spacers to locate the pivot stud properly fore / aft. After some mock up and testing using suspension shims and the original 7/8 spacers I had made I ended up with spacers measuring 1 3/16 that placed the ball stud inline fairly well with the frame side stud. Make sure you push the bracket upward as far as you can before tightening bellhousing fasteners too otherwise the z bar will tend to run downhill somewhat excessively. I find that the threaded stud of the pivot now bares against the block and this supports the bracket (which was flexing with it further forward and unsupported. I also ended up clearancing the flange on the bellhousing for lower rod clearance in addition to behind the pivot stud bracket so the bracket would fit with the QuickTime. The z bar has cross car free motion now so no binding. The felts keep it from moving too far and with the rods running straight between mounting points it doesn’t want to move cross car when actuated. I also D&T for a grease zerk since this piece doesn’t come with one and a little grease never hurt a thing. I have not reinstalled the set screw to lock the bearing on engine side in place yet. I find that if you add any more than ever so slight pressure it locks the machined Heim joint bearing up inside of the z bar. To be honest I am half tempted to just install an OEM style pivot with the polymer roller. Pedal effort is now smooth and manageable. It isn’t as easy as a new car or stock clutch but not horrible. For future reference the pedal ratio is 4:1 (pivot to pedal pad / pivot to clutch rod mount). Z bar ratio is 1.67:1. I didn’t measure clutch fork as it is installed in the car and not easy to measure but should be 3:1 or so…. For a total of 4 x 1.67 x 3 = 20:1. So a 500# pressure plate translates to a pedal force of 25#. I left the bracket installed on the engine but removed the ball stud for final installation. With the steering column out (just steering box) the frame bracket, z bar and engine stud snaked through the header and around the steering shaft pretty easily. I also pulled the master cylinder to make access for final install just a tad less frustrating.
Alas header installation. All installation is done from under the car so getting it high enough in the air is important. The drivers side was not bad, just jack the engine up and it goes in without much issue. Even with these TFS cylinder heads with the thick flange. Somewhat tight around the idler arm and in both cases (right and left) I loosened the UCA nuts and pushed the studs through the shock towers for clearance. With my old Hookers those studs had clearanced the tubes. Plenty of clearance to install the starter - especially the power master mini starter I am using. Connecting the cables and wires to the solenoid may be challenging though. Drivers side I found much more difficult. In addition to jacking the engine up as high as I could I ended having to remove the motor mount. It would not go in without doing so. I am using ARP SS header bolts with 5/16 hex. You can use a socket for most but the drivers side rear and one on the passenger side require a wrench due to shrouding by the tube. These Doug’s headers tuck up pretty tight to the floorboard. Almost seems like exhaust pipe or header extensions will need to jog a bit for the cross member or they may potentially rub. A road to journey for another day… Of course valve covers had to come off and even then hand clearance with my small paws can be challenging when installing spark plugs and more so plug wires. I do find I recently have developed a hankering for some FE Mercury lightning bolt valve covers and adaptors… I think painted or powder coated a metallic gold would look sweet. I am just not quite ready to pay what ppl are asking for them yet. With my luck they wouldn’t end up fitting…
You probably ran 1 3/4” dyno headers on the dyno so 1 5/8” tri-ys will cost you hp off the figures you have.
maybe a few… I also left some on the table at the dyno so… Ever see the header shootout episode of engine masters? Worth a watch where long tubes are compared to tri y and zoomies etc etc.
The Jalopy Journal
