Fox T-Bird/Cougar Forums

I have pics and will post up later but for now its just a really bad story.
Day 1.  Teardown of everything nescessary,  got the heads off in a few hours and got it ready for the new ones.(Problem 1 only a broken bolt in the old head but it still pissed me off)
Day 2.  Installed and torqued heads to recommended specs.  Finished assembly of the valvetrain  (Problem 2 Could not get motor mounts loose when I finally got them out could not get the brackets off :mad: drivers side mount was broken good thing I decided to change them day 2 shot)
Day 3.  Installed intake manifold torqued to recommended specs, (Problem 3 was missing a hose clamp for the thermostat to pipe hose) went to reinstall distributor and could not.  Looked into hole spotted missing hose clamp.  Slap self on wrist for not plugging the hole and grab magnet, magnet no workey.  Clamp moves farther into engine, :mad: grab needle nose pliers hose clamp dissappears. :mad: :mad: :mad: :mad:  In preparation to remove oil pan decide to try timing cover first, (Problem 4 broken water pump bolt in timing cover) this did turn out ok, as I removed the timing cover hose clamp fell out (:bowdown:) and I check play in timing chain while i'm looking at it, cam gear had a fuel pump eccentric on it BTW.:wtf:  (Problem 5 excessive play in timing chain) replaced with slightly used timing set from friends 93 Mustang GT.
I'll update as it goes final assembly should go quickly tomorrow if i can get the water pump mounting bolts

Sounds rough.  My cam had the fuel pump eccentric on it too.  I guess it's on all of them.  Good luck on putting her back together.

Cant believe you didn’t use this:shoothead

Day 4 Timing cover wins.  I broke off the part that had the broken bolt in it.  I'm ready to give up.

You can buy timing covers from jegs or summit.

No big deal.When I was doing the heads and timing chain,etc a couple ofweeks ago,the outer top two bolts in my timing cover broke.We could NOT get the cover off,so,we got a 3 lb. sledge,whacked the cover a couple of times and ended up having to break it into a couple of smaller pieces to get it off.It was insane.The good part,the bolts came out of the block,and I just replaced the timing cover.No great loss.Timing covers are easy to find.Be happy it wasn't a huge problem.

Yeah its just taking time i will hopefully have it all done wednesday and take it for a spin.

Just be careful... I wouldn't get on it for about 500 miles to let the gaskets get seated, but thats just my $.02.

Pictures?

drive it like you stole it lol. nah . just make sure you got no leaks and shes running like she should took me a couple days b4 i could get on it .  re tightened the header gaskits. and some other stupid stuff. oh yeah the fan wasntr working rite for some reason but all is well and got a chip on top of it . now i seem to want to drive the truck a little less as it's like a new car again. lol fun to drive. it's worth it.

so i gather your going to E7's or something else ? what intake?

Sounds like you are doing a great job to me.  Just bad luck and nothing that I have not done before.  The important thing is not to give up and Keep up the great work.

Learning is great fun and will have rewards.

TED

So i got the timing cover today, got shipped to the wrong address blah blah blah.  and installed it, the new water pump, new rad hoses, accessories, serp belt, upper intake, got pretty much all of it buttoned up.  Having a hard time finding studs to fit my headers but i got them sealed up ok for now.  Two of the bolts that go through the oil pan into the timing cover are smaller on the new cover.  Lost the bolt that holds down the bracket for the starter cable, and also a ground cable on the drivers side right next to the oil sender, anyone know what size and thread that bolt is?  Also when I started filling it up with coolant i have a big leak somewhere under the water pump too late now to go hunting for it so im off to bed.  Tried to fire it up just to see if it would before i go to bed and it turned over real slow and would not fire.  Any tips on how to get your timing right when you have no idea where TDC is?  I lined up the dots on the timing set before installing the distributor and aiming the rotor at #1 im hoping the ground cable or the timing is the reason it wont start.
Oh and I have magnafluxed, cleaned, painted, rebuilt, 3 angle, ported E7's :D  Stock intake and TB for now but I have the HO TB ready just waiting for either an intake to match or time to pull it off.

[/COLOR]
I dunno if the timing marks in the chain line up to #1 or not.
BUT I do know how to approximate #1 TDC without using the timing mark pointer or marks on the dampener. I'm assuming that’s your problem since you say you have “no idea where TDC is” (it’s where the pointer says it is.. unless there is no pointer or a wrong pointer)
 
1) Pull #1 plug
2) Stuff finger into #1 plug hole
3) Rotate engine SLOWLY (by hand) till pressure in the cylinder pushes your finger out (compression stroke, make a couple rotations, you will feel it)
4) Use something Flexible (I like a plastic straw with a loose knot tied in the end so it don’t accidentally fall into the cylinder)
5) Continue rotating even SLOWER (by hand) until the straw is as far out of the cylinder as possible.
 
You are now at TDC on the compression stroke +- a degree or so
 
Points to Note
TDC is not good enough; it must be TDC on the compression stroke. TDC on the exhaust stroke you will be 180 off on your distributer.
 
DO NOT use something hard like a screw driver in plce of the straw. You can damage the engine, you just want something to feel the piston with. that won’t scratch the cylinder or dent the piston.
 
When using the straw you can rotate past TDC and feel the piston moving back down the cylinder then reverse rotation and pull it back up BUT you MUST travel PAST TDC and come back to it in the correct rotation (you don’t need to make a full two revolutions if you go past but you DO need to take any slop out of the chain)

Takes 5-10 min
Works like a dream
You can get amazingly close to exactly TDC

It lives. no power steering because i took off the belt so i wont wreck the new water pump and im only moving it out of the garage the dist just needed to be turned a bit and at 4am i wasnt so ambitious.  Now i just need to address the exhaust leak and the water pump gasket leak.

Took the water pump off. opened it up put some silicone on both sides of the pump to plate gasket, did the same for the plate to timing cover buttoned it up again and it still leaks.  So i pulled it off again went nuts with the silicone and bolted it back up I'm going to give it a little time to set up and try again.  If it still leaks i'm gonna have to get a UV dye kit tomorrow and try to find where its coming from.

I agree get 500 miles on the car before you put your foot in it unless some drunk rednecks try to run your ass off the road then floor it and hope for the best.

Well its done turns out i used the wrong water pump gasket:hick: I was wondering why there were four of em in the timing cover set!
Problem one it fired but idled really high and had 0 power when i gave it some gas, vaccum leak somewhere right?  Turns out when i put the bolts in the upper intake i used one that was a little too long and it didnt seal fixed.  Now for the exhaust, once the  vaccum leak was fixed the car sounded like its supposed to i.e. the exhaust was sealed but i bought the bolts so i did the drivers side anyway, passenger side may require removal of the starter, hah screw that, not right now anyway maybe later.  Got the right bolts for front of the the oil pan turns out my own stupidity got the best of me again and the bolts were not the wrong size i was just putting them in the wrong spot I swear the new timing cover reversed them :D.  Changed the oil flushed the coolant and took it for a second test drive running great and maybe a little stronger too kinda hard to tell right now because i didnt get on it too much, well maybe a little lol.  I have a few pics but i cant get them to upload right now for some reason not on here or on cardomain.:mad:

Ha just a little heads up for you guys doing the head swap you have to go get plugs for a mustang the stock ones are way tooo long and will cause a mid throttle (like 25 to 40% throttle) miss.  Fixed that added an MSD cap and rotor kit and its running better than ever.

NO shiznit!??
I feel like a douschebag now...
I wish I had known that...