I will get your complimentary "I got my old Ford running first" trophy in the mail. Hopefully the first drive goes smooth and you just have a few things to button up.
I will get your complimentary "I got my old Ford running first" trophy in the mail. Hopefully the first drive goes smooth and you just have a few things to button up.
Hahahaha! Thanks buddy! 
Dusterbd13-michael said:Best update ive woken up to in a long time.
Congratulations!!!
Thanks Michael! I could have sworn I saved your number and I wanted to text you last night but I couldn't find it.
In reply to wawazat :
828-260-1254
Anytime my friend!
After work and dinner for the family I pushed the car outta the garage and attempted to start her. Lots of misfires, poor idling and shutting down after a short run. Uh oh! Kept trying to start but lost the tach signal and just wouldn't fire again. I cut out my crimp on the tach signal wire from the 6AL but no difference. I went through my wiring diagrams and did some internet research and the only thing left was a poor quality or inconsistent 12V keyed power signal. I found my connection in the cabin under the dash, made a quick snip, and pulled the wire in to the engine bay. As the new MSD box needed a switched power supply and it was working well I tapped in to that line and hoped for the best. I climbed in to the car, hit the key and she started up right away! I let the car idle for over 30 minutes with a few rev blips but no stumbles or shut downs. Water temp came up and fans did their thing. No oil leaks, fuel leaks or brake fluid leaks either. Satisfied that the new bearings finally got some break in I shut her off after texting some friend here and talking to my Dad. Felt pretty good!
I finished the ignition install today. After verifying it would run last night today was the day to solidly mount everything and clean up the wiring. The whole ignition system is mounted on a polypropylene panel attached to the fender apron with three screws. I mounted this in 2017 before I was aware of Nutserts. I got a bunch of 1/4-20 inserts and the die set for a Nutsert tool. I opened up the holes in the apron and the PP panel and used the tool with a box wrench and an Allen wrench. I mounted the 6AL to the PP plate using the rubber spacers then bolted the plate to the car using rubber spacers (RUBBER BISCUIT!) beneath the 1/4-20 bolts. The new 6AL uses a single waterproof plug for all wiring. With the box in place I cleaned up the old wiring a TON the routed and terminated all the wires for the box. Then I hit all the shrink tubing with some heat. I started the car to verify everything was good. Now on to the clutch.
Fantastic update!!
clutch won't release.
News of the Obvious, automotive exhaust gets damn hot damn fast!
In the good news column I did some research on start up settings for the FiTech system and made some tweaks to Prime Fuel setting cutting it down significantly and it now starts much easier.
I'm interested to see how the fitech works out for you on the tweaking end. Looks pretty straightforward
When I first installed it it fired right up until the fuel pump wire hit the header, melted the jacket and popped the fuse. After that it ran pretty well. Since it had buttons I had to push them and generally it ran well. I put about 1800 miles on it and was pleased with everything expect the cold start where I had to open the throttle a bit to get a single key cycle start. Then the fuel pump died due to PWM output being incompatible with Tanks Inc GPA4 fuel pump. Swapped that out for FiTech pump and no further issues. I did have EMI/RFI issues as a lot of Ford powered vehicles seem to have as the ECU is in the front of the TB. I played a lot with shielding the ECU which didn't help and the tach wire which did but as I moved the wire to a single run area at the same time that may not have been the fix. I also found that my hood was just grazing the oval air cleaner housing and pushing down on the coil wire on my Mallory distributor on the car when I bought it. That set up a strange voltage issue which killed the car one night. New to me MSD distributor and different air cleaner and that problem has not returned. With the dramatic difference in starting now with the new 6AL and new keyed power connection I feel good. We'll see how long it lasts!
I will keep at this thing until it's resolved. I will keep at this thing until it's resolved. I will keep at this thing until it's resolved!
Them Duke boys!
With advice from Brent (Norma66) and reviewing the instructions from Modern Drive Line it appears I still have air in the clutch hydraulics. I'm going to remove the slave from the bellhousing mount and let the piston fully extend. This will also place the bleed screw in the correct orientation to let bubbles rise to it for another bleed procedure.
Pics of recent work noted above.
30 minutes of idling with maybe a few blips
Nutserts and die set but no tool I can make this work!
A 17mm box wrench in the hex head of the tool and an 8mm hex key and they were in!
Better than before but still have a long way to go to get this thing cleaned up. I'm trying to keep under hood color palette limited to black, blue, and grey/silver as I feel too it looks cleaner and more planned/intentional that way. Exterior color has plenty of POP!
In reply to wawazat :
On Ursula the E12 I had to let the slave cylinder dangle under the car to get a successful bleed. It was a PITA, but it worked. You're almost there!
I berkeleying hope so Patrick. I saw an oil leak tonight. My guess is rear main though maybe oil pan gasket. Dang
My dad turns 82 tomorrow so today we hit a few car shows and tonight we took my parents out to dinner. Took my wife and my boys out to ice cream afterwards so I could watch some cars on Woodward.
My clutch slave had a bench bleed procedure as well. Engine color is so hard to keep under control with all the different components you are trying to mix and match.
The clutch slave cylinder didn't have a bench bleed procedure neither did the clutch master cylinder in my MDL kit. Hmmmmm.
Simple stuff but it baffled me today. I let the slave cylinder hang down on the braided SS hose hoping bubbles would rise to the bleed port. Instead the piston exited the bore due to a full fluid load and I couldn't get it to return. I didn't want to break anything (nor did I know the internals were so simple) and didn't stop and think the issue through so instead of cracking the bleeder screw and pushing the incompressible fluid out the escape port I struggled with it. I was worried I'd damaged the guts when the piston wouldn't return so I found a local replacement and bought it. When I pulled the existing cylinder lines TA DA the piston slid back in to the bore. I feel like a fool but I cleaned things up and reinstalled the now partially pre-filled slave cylinder. I'll let her do a slow drip for a while yet tonight and then try another pressure bleed tomorrow night.
Isopropyl alcohol (80%)does a pretty good job cleaning up spilled brake fluid. Not perfect on tools but works well on skin, and floors and car parts. My local Home Depot had gallon jugs on clearance for $0.50 and I grabbed some for general cleaning tasks. Keeps me from tracking it in to the house.
Nice job on the Cougar! Glad it's running again. Been following your build.
I recently added distributor and CDI ignition/coil to my Holly Sniper system on the Falcon 5.0L. This opened up all sorts of new EMI/RFI issues that took awhile to solve. Careful routing of the trigger wires away from the plug wires helped for sure. I redid all of my EFI harness grounds, which helped as well. So did increasing my ECU shielding, and grounding it directly to the engine block and wiring harness grounds. Been driving it reliably for a couple weeks now after sorting all that out. Aftermarket EFI on a SBF is no walk in the park that's for sure.
Thanks mickpiston! I think the Ford distributor position close to the front mounted ECU's on these things contributes to a lot of the problems us Ford owners have. Hope it's fixed for me now.
So another issue I ran in to was exhaust clearance on both the trans crossmember and the drive shaft, actually the front yoke so I can't check clutch release or drive the car to avoid damaging my AL driveshaft. The driveshaft and crossmember are both new since the last time the car ran so this isn't unexpected. I've got it scheduled to go in to an exhaust shop in the morning via flatbed as I like my neighbors and open headers at 8:00am are frowned upon in the 'hood. One day turnaround from the manager.
Awaiting the flatbed. No hood must mean it's a hot rod!
Hood off must mean it's a hot rod, right?
Did the clutch issue get resolved? Like, can you drive it home from the exhaust shop?
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