The tranny is finally bolted into the car! That's the good news.
The bad news is that it doesn't look right. After bolting the tranny to the engine I had to jack the back end of it way up to get the cross member in there (the cross member is from my parts TC, a T5 car, so the mount holes lined up). By "way up" I mean "shifter bolts touching the floor". At first I thought it may have been my Energy Suspension rear mount, but no, I compared that with the stock mount that I took off the tranny and the heights were identical. I then figured I'd be able to tell if it was supposed to be like that by looking at the engine fan - if the rear of the tranny was up too high the front of the engine would be low, so the fan wouldn't be centered in the shroud. The fan looks good in the shroud, and the engine looks like it's sitting in the car the way it always did.
I came to the conclusion that it's normal and that I simply didn't make the shifter hole in the floor big enough. I made the hole bigger, and now nothing is touching, but I just wanted to make sure this is normal before putting the driveshaft back in (I've got the driveshaft from that parts TC, too) and having shaged up driveline angles.
So, my question: Is it normal, or do I have some weird sort of crossmember making it sit too high in the rear (crossmember is the same shape as the AOD one that came out, except of course the ends were in different positions)?
I had the same issue. Not sure if it is "normal" though. Did the TC have a hump under the console?
From what I know about the T-5 swap, the hole in the tunnel has to be pretty large to accommodate the shifter. If you had the factory plus-shaped AOD shifter hole, the 4 tabs (corners) would need knocked out at the very least. So I think what you did was probably correct. Carpet covers everything anyhow, right?!
Ah, I though Nova Scotia was too far northeast for that type of French Canadian dialect. ;)
Actually Carm, you bring up a great point. Our drivelines are NOT centered in these cars, left-to-right. There is a slight passenger side bias in every Fox vehicle I've ever inspected, especially at the rear suspension points. So if you look down the driveshaft tunnel and the shaft itself is off to the passenger side just a hair, then you are aligned correctly.
Also, just for posterity's sake, the steering column has a left-leaning bias as you sit in the seat...it is not centered. That explains why our seats have the "Fox lean"--our bodies naturally try to center themselves in the seat, but the column forces our left sides foward, therefore pushing our right sides backward and twisting the seat backs.
Gotta love Ford.
Shifter bolts touching the floor?
My whole shifter is through the floor. :hick:
(http://i8.photobucket.com/albums/a38/cb400f75/Mark%20vii/Trans%20Swap/shifterhole1.jpg)
Mines close to the floor to.
Cool, thanks for the answers, everyone. Now I can finish up the swap :D
Mine isn't that close.I had the factory floor shifter (AOD),and zero mods were done to do the swap (cutting,fitting,etc.).100% bolt in.My shifter didn't go through the floor like 5.0 bird's.
I often wondered why my driveshaft was offset like that.thanks for mentioning that Eric.
Your car must be bent :shakeass:
Mine didn't stick out like 5.0 bird's, but it's definitely close to the floor. The car was originally column shift with a consolette. Didn't notice whether the parts TC had any different shape to the floor - I stripped it three years ago, and it's long been cut up, crushed, and reincarnated into a Chinese Geely. Thankfully when I stipped it I knew I would one day do a 5-speed swap, so I saved everything (both shifter boots, driveshaft, crossmember, etc).
Don't you have to use the v8 trans cross member not the 4cyl tc one????
You can't use the 4 cylinder one because it only has one mounting hole in the center, where as the V8 uses two mounting holes, like a mustang.
The factory T5 cars, and floor shift cars have a large hole cut in the floor, then a raised panel that gets spot welded to the trans tunnel, which adds something like another inch of clearance height wise, and more width. The inner boot also mounts to that panel. If I ever remember, I can take pictures of the panel, I have one I need to put in my red car.
My V8 cross member had two holes, my TC one had three (I have no idea which of the three the original Turbo Coupe tranny used). My Energy Suspension mount was actually bought for the AOD that was in the car, but I'd never used it. The T5 apparently uses the same mount. The energy suspension mount had three threaded holes in the bottom, but I only used the outer two.
That would make sense. I saved the inner boot, but didn't pull the carpet out of the parts TC so I don't remember any raised panel. Wish I'd have known, I'd have saved it. Oh well... with the hole enlarged there's about 1/2" of clearance, and with the energy suspension rear mount and Chuck's front mounts it shouldn't move that much anyway...
Noticed another thing today. The Turbo Coupe drive shaft is about 3/4" shorter than the V8 one. I used the TC one - it had two brand new U-joints in it, while the original had the original 20-year-old joints.
'Nuther question: I had a fun time trying to figure out where to route the clutch cable. I ended up going between the engine and the engine mount, alongside the oil pan, as that was the only place that would allow the cable a straight shot to the clutch fork. This makes the cable touch the exhaust manifold (yes, still stock manifolds, a least until summer when I can deal with bending up some new front pipes and adding O2 bungs). There is a metal bracket attached to the cable that I assume attaches to the strut tower to keep the thing away from the manifold (or header, in a Mustang). Yet I can't see any holes where the bracket would be attached. Could someone take a pic of how their clutch cable attaches to the strut tower?
I'm not near my car at the moment, it was fun trying to find how it ran but your right about where you ran it. The hole is on the front side of the strut tower there may be some wires hiding it.
should be two holes one for the tab if its still on your bracket. I used a 1/4" bolt and nut to fasten it.
Pics!!! Where's the pics? :beatyoass:
best i can do unfortunately. the bracket you can just see above the pully in this pic.
(http://memimage.cardomain.com/ride_images/1/1890/741/4722870029_large.jpg)
I have recently made a conversion from column to floor shifter on my sons -88 T-bird.
The floor is different. I know for sure mine (-88 T-bird) came with floor shifter and my sons with column shifter from the factory.
For the floor shifts Ford cut a big hole and then welded in a whole new piece of prefabricated sheetmetal.
The end result is that with original floor shifter is the floor higher, approx 1.2" in the back and approx 0.6" in the front.
I duplicated this on my sons car, so the shifter will be positioned correct in the console.
Pictures from my conversion attached. My car is originally a full console car. Quarter in the image for clearance reference. I cut the front mounting tabs out. I think the left/right bias from the engine to the rear diff is to keep the needle bearings in the U-Joints rolling.
There is about an inch or of clearance.
(http://img403.imageshack.us/img403/6564/s7300280rb4.th.jpg) (http://img403.imageshack.us/my.php?image=s7300280rb4.jpg) (http://img174.imageshack.us/img174/6817/s7300283sn2.th.jpg) (http://img174.imageshack.us/my.php?image=s7300283sn2.jpg) (http://img184.imageshack.us/img184/1686/s7300282wx2.th.jpg) (http://img184.imageshack.us/my.php?image=s7300282wx2.jpg)
Perhaps your engine mounts are sagging (or maybe mine are).
-Dan
Exactly, this is what's look like on a T-bird with floor shift.
The modification you did is very close what I did when I installed a T56.
The tunnel is higher, wider and flat on the top.
The one with column shifter is lower and more rounded.
On the picture to the right (I only see 2 pictures). To the left of the shifter some of the cutout of the original tunnel is seen. In front of shifter, just before the screw that's on the tunnel. There is the hump of approx. 0.6" and imagine when there are a even bigger hump further back.