new 87 bird.

Topic: new 87 bird. (Read 11986 times) previous topic - next topic

Reply #30 – April 25, 2014, 09:35:58 PM

I've been breaking the metal brackets and shearing the bolt off inside.the.block. the metal brackets have been flexing and cracking along the tab lines untill the whole mount comes undone. overall, I've been picking up extra motor mounts and I have to special order them, so I've been getting them.before I've ripped into.the car, just in case.

i was driving my car hundreds of miles every week for my job. sometimes i parked it in an adjacent parking lot, sometimes i pulled it over curbs and parked on the parking strip. (I do overhead construction by.trade).

also with the 3.35 1st gear and 275/60's out back, even though its a 1 wheel peel, the 10.8" wide tires dead hook if i dump the.clutch. it still should be somewhere.between 270 ftlbs and it can break the tires loose from a dead stop, but any forwards momentum and i can, and do give.it hell. its also not uncommon for me to have several.hundred pounds of tools in the trunk.
i know the chuck mounts will be fine, but i want to fix it once, and never have to touch it again.

Vinne, ill get.you a number this weekend. out.the door should be under $50 for the lower, and ill ship it.cheap. won't be till next weekend.though.

new 87 bird.

Reply #31 – April 26, 2014, 07:44:23 AM

Thanks a lot. I'm easy to find. I'll have the funds ready for you.

new 87 bird.

Reply #32 – May 13, 2014, 01:39:13 AM

I think I'm just gonna throw more stock motor mounts on it and use a torque limiter. i found some mounts at a junkyard, without the rubber they charged me $2.99 for each side. it will at least be enough i can swap motors and start mocking stuff up until my work picks up a bit and i get more spending money to throw at it.

I'm.gonna focus on quick and easy junkyardmods and see if i can find some cheap power steering racks. my lines seem to be fine from what i saw the other day, its g out of the end of the rack under full lock, even when the cars sitting.

agenda for the weekend, temp motor mounts, maybe 3.8 rockers (1.7 ratio), 3 g alt and electric fan. after pricing out wire, its cheaper to but some cheap jumper cables then good wire. ill see if i can rig up a fuse setup cheapish and look into picking up a fan controller.

new 87 bird.

Reply #33 – May 13, 2014, 06:26:07 PM

cool seeing the history on this one. subbed.

new 87 bird.

Reply #34 – May 13, 2014, 06:48:49 PM

Cheap racks! Go to autozone. The stock rack is like 55 bucks plus 20 core. TC 2.5 lock to lock is 75 bucks 20 core.

[url]http://www.autozone.com/autozone/parts/1987-Ford-Thunderbird/Rack-Pinion/_/N-iilgdZ8oxk3?filterByKeyWord=rack+and+pinion&fromString=search
[/URL]

Also it has a limited lifetime warranty.

new 87 bird.

Reply #35 – May 13, 2014, 08:40:15 PM

I can get one at the junkyard for less then half with a $3 core. to be honest, i am still seriously considering going to a manual rack and don't want to dump a lot of money into it unless its permenent.

still thinking out loud and changing my mind way too much.

new 87 bird.

Reply #36 – May 13, 2014, 09:40:51 PM

Spend the money and get the one with a warranty. Mine came from autozone, the sport rack, and it's been fine for over three years or so.

new 87 bird.

Reply #37 – May 18, 2014, 12:29:25 AM

I've decided to be a bit more smart about the whole thing and putting everything off for a few weeks. I've decided to pay some bills off early so my next check will be wholey open for what i end up doing. i don't want to limit what i do in an adverse way because i decided to be cheap/use the wrong parts.

i am still kinda stuck on the power/manual steering bit. i want this car to be a street cruiser and keep it easy to drive and dead reliable. i think I'm going to rebuild the whole front end since i plan on using the 11" spindles. that means balljoints, inner/outer tie rods, rotors/calipers possibly brake lines as well. if i do a new power rack ill replace the pump too, which will put me at the exact same price either way, except for one part.

the manual rack to rag joint is a different spline. i think I've found a place that has the right spline output without using a super expensive flamming river steering shaft. its either that or get way lucky at a junkyard and find a 74-78 pinto with manual steering, or a 79-83 manual steering mustang. then i can use only the lower portion and tie it all together using my old shaft.

decisions. manual parts just don't break. if i kill a/c, power steering and go to an electric fan, i will have opened up the entire drivers side for another project I've been thinking about later on.

new 87 bird.

Reply #38 – June 09, 2014, 11:41:20 PM

Well, motors about out.

motor mounts are both busted. i have decided these will be replaced with solid mounts. I'm just sick of screwing with them. block is coming out entirely so that i can fix a motor mount bolt broken off in the block. I've spent over $100 on rubber mounts that just break, and I'm done with it. i like the idea of chuck mounts, but I'm a cheap skate.

i also feel like its the flex in the stock mounts that are causing all of the problems. smashed oil pan, ac lines, broken battery mount. turns out exhaust a stud had just rusted off causing a leak.

I'm rambling now.

next couple weeks I'm buying new gaskets and gt-40p heads. I've decided to eliminate the ports in the heads. they only reduce emissions before the engine is warm by using exhaust through the smog pump. this is bypassed after its up to tempeture from what i can tell, and is the cause of all those littleplastic vac lines that like to break. a simple rubber hose will eliminate everything and hopefully not effect emissions any.

in the next few weeks ill be buying new valve springs and retainers to go along with the p heads and h.o. camshaft. the new motor will wait until another build unless i blow this one up, or the bores look really chewed up.

I'm really curious to see the lifter valleys after 50k miles without an oil change.

new 87 bird.

Reply #39 – June 12, 2014, 07:26:00 PM

http://www.speedwaymotors.com/Universal-Bolt-Through-Engine-Mount-Cushion-Kit,1199.html

found my new mounts. also figured out why my brackets kept shearing off the.bolts.

the bolts are too long by about 1/4" compared to the ones i have on the other engine. they bottom out just a hair before tight and allow the motor to rock back and forth, cutting up the bolt and eventually shearing.

new mounts appear to be the same size and shape, but bolt the two rubber peices together. I'm going to order them, and if they fit, i don't see that center bolt breaking anytime soon.

new 87 bird.

Reply #40 – June 24, 2014, 12:45:16 AM

Stuff is moving forwards.

Engine puller is hooked up. i need to remove the hood and drain transmission fluid and its ready to come out. i have a few goals for tomorrow.

hit the junkyard and pull some "p" heads. higher compression ratio and rotted out smog ports on the bacj of the heads justified this in my mind. i will still have the smog pump hooked up to the heads, but it will go.directly from the pump to the exhaust with the vac line hooked up for the wot cutout.

also gonna pick up another egr lower manifold if i can find one off an explorer. then i will be able to retain all emissions except for the smog port off the back of the heads.

once i mock up the exhaust headers with the p heads to get an idea of spark plug clearance, then i can start cleaning up and swapping parts.

gonna pick up the parts and then start ordering gaskets. gonna go with standard gt-40 everything unless i can find a cheap head gasket with less than a .047 compressed thickness without a ton of added cost.

hopefully i can have the basics and order springs and retainers with gaskets and keep everything in the sub $300 range, but i will budget $450 just incase.

also, I've setup to go look at a turbo coupe rear end at the first of the month. its a t-5 disk rear which should give me a 3.55 ratio. this would take my first and final ratio from 9.1 to 11.8 which should really, really help it scoot off the line in first. a 3:55 rear, traction lock, and 3:35 1st gear with that f-150 clutch and 275/60's are gonna be a lot of fun i think

.

Pictures will follow by tomorrow afternoon.

new 87 bird.

Reply #41 – June 24, 2014, 06:46:37 AM

Sounds like you have a pretty good plan. And it's nice to see you finally getting the old Bird moving forward.

new 87 bird.

Reply #42 – July 01, 2014, 12:12:58 AM

Got my motor mounts from speed way. looks like they will work, but i might need minor tpuppies. i haven't actually pulled the motor yet. I've had my kids for the summer and didn't feel like taking them to daycare so i could go junkyarding.

the plan right now is just get the gt-40p heads and lower intake then clean everythibg up and take it apart. gonna wait until thursday morning as the kids go home wednesday night.

new 87 bird.

Reply #43 – July 28, 2014, 01:43:57 AM

Took me a couple weeks, but here it goes. old vs modified, plus what the new mounts looked like out of the box.

I'm gonna loose 1/2-1" of height with this setup. knock the center pin out the bottom mount, use a very large drill bit, and it should be a bolt in affair. i only finished one side as i had to hand file the hole with a really, really py old file. my biggest drill bit was about 1/4" too small. hoping this new setup will clear and handle all 270ftlbs of torque my motor should be capeable of producing.

if the test fit goes okay, then i will clean up the mounts and pick up some washers to try and weld on top and.bottom of the mounts. this will probably require longer motor mount to block bolts, but should give me another 1/4" of height and fix my cracked/broken upper mounts.

then onto pulling the motor to get the bolt out that broke inside the block... i swear if this doesn't fix it, ill just go to a motor plate and forget motor mounts even exist...

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new 87 bird.

Reply #44 – July 28, 2014, 06:47:30 AM

Use the Chuck W mounts. Easy, and done. Cheaper than a block plate, WAY less work, and they will hold up easy to your engine, and future possible upgrades. Sometimes we invest more into a lot of small fixes than we would if we just bought what we actually needed from the beginning..