85.03 Crown Vic Coupe "CVGT"

[gadget73]

Putting the engine in with no rad support or front end? Thats cheating.

[Bobcat]

Well it runs. For about 30 seconds.. It seems to be running out of fuel.

Prime the pump, check the shrader valve; not the best amount of fuel but enough. Start it up, it runs for 30 seconds and then shuts off.
Check the shrader valve again, nothing at all. So I got a new filter this morning and if it's not that, then I suppose I'll be needing a new fuel pump. :\ CFI pump may have finally kicked the bucket..

Oh and get this. The first time it started, it shut right off. So I went to check timing and found out the distributor wasn't spinning. I was all like "There's no freakin way that my distributor gear or my cam gear BROKE." Come to find out, the roll pin on the distributor broke, allowing the gear to just spin on the shaft. So I took the roll pin out of my old CFI distributor and was right back in business.

[gadget73]

I believe the factory pin is a spiro-lock pin, not just a split roll pin. One thing to watch for there, if the pin broke it might be because the oil pump jammed. If you have a stronger than stock pump drive shaft the pin becomes the weak point. The stock pump shaft will turn into a Twizzler with no problem at all.

[Bobcat]

I believe the factory pin is a spiro-lock pin, not just a split roll pin. One thing to watch for there, if the pin broke it might be because the oil pump jammed. If you have a stronger than stock pump drive shaft the pin becomes the weak point. The stock pump shaft will turn into a Twizzler with no problem at all.

The pump is a factory replacement and I do use the factory shaft. Since It wasn't a high flow, I didn't see a reason behind getting a stronger shaft. Many people tell me that my shaft is plenty strong. The roll pin did look pretty shitty when I was putting it in, so It doesn't surprise me that it went bad.

The steering shaft is done and installed, I paid a local buddy to build it and it couldn't have come out any better. It uses a U-Joint off of a brand new 03 shaft, that's welded to the end of the 85 shaft, where the old rag joint used to be. Pretty simple, works great. I put a new rear main seal in (since Nick dumped laquer all over my old new one..) So now the clutch, flywheel, clutch fork, throwout bearing and transmission are in. A jackstand currently holds the transmission up since I cleaned up and painted the cross member, which I'll probably install tonight. That being said, the cross member fits without modification with the factory AOD transmission bushing. So I've got a bunch of little things to touch up, new Walbro 255 fuel pump is coming in Monday to a local speed shop by me FS0000169. (Will be perfect for when the turbo gets tossed on.) Uhhhh, I need to put the driveshaft back in and hope to god that the rear can hold up for a little while (Open diff, leaks a very very hefty amount out of the pinion seal and one of the axles are currently grinding.), until I can get some more cash to pick up a 3.55 31spline LSD 09 rear that's nearby. It seems I always leave the axle to the last part of the plan... I still have a bunch of cleaning up to do on the wiring and a 3G swap to do in the near future. I have an entire wiring kit for. Just haven't been able to get an alternator.









I cleaned up the wiring and organized it on the driver's side. The passenger side is still next to come.

[Brown_Muscle]

Nice! It's really coming along, lots o' steam. Steering shaft looks great. I agree, you have a pretty strong shaft, from what I've heard. How much are they charging for the 09 rear, if you don't mind me asking?

[Bobcat]

Nice! It's really coming along, lots o' steam. Steering shaft looks great. I agree, you have a pretty strong shaft, from what I've heard. How much are they charging for the 09 rear, if you don't mind me asking?

$350 and it has 110k. Not great but that's the best thing around here...

[Brown_Muscle]

To bad the junkyards in PA aren't closer to you, $100 for a rear is generally the going price there. Maybe something else will pop up in the mean time

[Mr Bean]

What did you end up doing to refuckulate the header panel support?

[dd345]

What did you end up doing to refuckulate the header panel support?

Second This. Nice work.

[gadget73]

Stock pump drive shaft is perfectly fine for a stock pump, but if a bit of grit gets jammed between the gears it will not end well. Keep trash out of the oil and you're good.

As long as theres a reason for the stock pin to have failed, thats fine. Just would suck to see this go back together and launch a rod because the pump shaft failed.

[sly]

Looking more like a car again! WOOT!

[Bobcat]

What did you end up doing to refuckulate the header panel support?

Cut off the bottom portion, welded on a flat plate that was flush to the old body mount, mounting plate and drilled a hole for the body mount bolts on each side. Oh, I also made some "eccentric" washers for each side out of the old ones. Not real proud of them but it works. The whole ordeal wouldn't taken a day, if my welder contact (Brother) was quicker. But it came out nice, regardless. I painted the entire thing in four layers of X-O rust, same thing I've been using everywhere else. I had to adapt my plan, since my 03 core support was dicked hard.

Stock pump drive shaft is perfectly fine for a stock pump, but if a bit of grit gets jammed between the gears it will not end well. Keep trash out of the oil and you're good.

As long as theres a reason for the stock pin to have failed, thats fine. Just would suck to see this go back together and launch a rod because the pump shaft failed.

I'd love to see that happen. I wouldn't even be that disappointed, since I'd probably be halfway through a burnout.



Tinkered a bit more on it for a few hours today. Cross member is good to go, I've given it all day to cure and I'll likely put it in tomorrow. Then I can figure out how much fuck-ulating I need to do on the exhaust. I spent some time on making the template for the bracket that will be used to hold the slave cylinder on the side of the tranny. I think I'm either going to have Nick weld a piece of angle Iron to a plate (The plate will fit around all the curves on the side of T5 and bolt on with the bellhousing bolts and then the piece of angle iron will be welded vertical so that one flat portion of it will be parallel with the transmission, allowing the slave cylinder to bolt to the side of that. Annnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnn nnnnnnnnndddddddddddddd In theory once my fuel pump gets here and I make that slave cylinder bracket, I'll be able to drive it. I mean, It won't have brakes.. Since I need to get a fitting to adapt the 97' master's prop valve down to 3/16. Fuck. I can't even use my emergency brake to stop the car, either.. Since I need to figure out what in the world I'm going to do about that. I'm thinking an 03+ cable will work, I'll inspect farther, whenever I'm standing next to it and the thought comes into mind.. Damnit, I also need to make a new rad support for it, since the 03 one hangs real low. Maybe I'll make up some adapter block plate things.

[Bobcat]

Well,

Got home last night and went to go bleed the brakes with my buddy. Opened up the right rear bleeder, poured fluid in and pumped the brakes, fluid came out. Went to go do the left rear the same way; bleeder snaps off clean. So I put down my tools and called it a night. Today I ordered a new caliper from the parts store and picked up a new harmonic balancer (had my doubts about the old one, seeing that it wobbled.) Put it on the car, set it to 10 before. The damn thing will still only run for about 30 seconds, seems that it goes into high idle and once it drops out of high idle, it sputters and stalls. I can keep it running by messing with the throttle and advancing it a little bit and once it's warmed up a little bit (a minute of run time) it will return to idle but it seems that the idle is so low that it will die. I plan to check for vacuum leaks first and then if I can't find any major ones, I'll bump up the idle a tad bit, with the "do not touch screw".

Got the Walbro 255 installed (Obviously, since it's running. Duhh) everyone on here that had installed an aftermarket pump, which was a smaller diameter; used radiator hose to fill the gap around the pump. But since radiator hose doesn't fare well with being submerged in gasoline, I decided against it. I ended up cutting two slits in the rubber boot and wrapping a hose clamp around the pump and the assembly. Between that, the hose, wiring and pump sock; it's held in there pretty good. Also, the OD of the pump input is very close to 3/4", so I went down to the parts store and measured all of their pump socks and found one that's specified for a GM truck, which had a 3/4" ID. Works great. Now here's the bad news, I went to go unplug the pump, to change something and the positive terminal broke right off of the assembly. After having a slight freak out, finding out that these assemblies cost $206.. I tossed it on my drill press, drilled the top of the rivet off and pulled the little terminal through. I then replaced it with a little bolt and nut that was the same OD, put a new terminal on the end of the pump wire and was back in business. Making sure to put the insulator back around the bolt, obviously. She's back to making 40 PSI on the rail, beautiful. I'll post some pictures when I'm back on my at home desktop.

So after I bleed the brakes, get a 5/16 rod (for the clutch slave) / bleed the clutch, double check the timing with the timing light, fix the idle issue, finish bolting at least the driver's seat down, put in the radiator, fill it with coolant and fill the rear end. I should be able to drive it. Seeing that I need it done by next friday and would REALLY like to have it done by this weekend, so I can sort out any other little issues.. I mean, not DONE. But at least drive able.

[knucklehead0202]

Progress is progress man, and you're moving along admirably I'd say.

[SVT98t]

Good.
Hurry up.


-ryan s.