gumby said:In reply to RedGT :
Yup! In this case, they were more "belt and suspenders" than anything else. The caliper pistons were locked up solid, but I didn't figure it would hurt to block the pressure too.
I stopped in Lancaster, OH for the night. Visited with a friend and then finished out the drive today. Uneventfully pulled into my drive just now. Gonna head to the shop in a bit and start making lists.
Glad you made it back safely.
Is there enough room in the budget for nitrous?
Don't you dare sully the glorious SHO engine with laughing gas! Only the finest eBay turbo will do 
I didn't do a very good job of making lists last night. I decided that this car has not shown me a single reason NOT to immediately put it out on course for an autoX, so I set about making it ready for that instead.
I was hoping to have a pre-Challenge meeting with Bob's Tib even though it is currently on more suspension than it will have for Challenge, but it didn't play nice. On top of that, Bob and his co-driver got to run second heat with drying conditions vs me in first heat during the flood.
I am becoming a pretty big fan of this car. After so many uneventful miles on the way home, it crushed its first autoX completely untested also! Fun, responsive, and composed, even in the rain, with front struts that are going soft and an unknown alignment. It cruises down the highway nicer at 30yrs old than several 5-10yo cars I have driven. No wind noise, no squeaks or rattles. There is some noise from the front on turning that sounds like upper strut mounts.
I threw some money at parts last night and this afternoon. Mrs. gumby wants her aftermarket wheels, and her new tires, back on her car. I am claiming the stock wheels that still have two good BFGs for the SHO, so I ordered spacers to lower the 55mm offset and a couple of Comp2 A/S tires. I also dropped a RockAuto order:
Everything will be here before Friday, and I should have a pretty busy day lined up. Gastropod Challenge prep is underway, and it feels so good 
1. Sweet!
2. What the heck class is ZF?
ZF is a local joke. Stands for zero berkeleys and is a the first SCCA class addition since stf
the car looked good. Very little body roll but that could also be bee wise there was no grip. Wife’s car kicked your butt. The non-super Kia did fantastic for being stock auto 2.0l with big ass mismatched tires.
Blockhead R(14yo daughter) had her first ride in the SHO last night. She asked if I am keeping it after Challenge because she wants it instead of my truck when she starts driving next year 
Tires showed up yesterday. Two more packages out for delivery today. I laid out a plan for exhaust and looked at possible options for a cold air intake. Momentum is building; 2wks till departure day!
In reply to gumby :
Im happy you got something going and are coming. Just stay off of whatever road ended the mustang.
Progress day!
Two new front tires, flipped the rears. This is what happens when your main vendor for cheap parts is RockAuto
I panicked real quick, but found that KYB says these ARE actually the same. Different markets, running change, blah blah. I know RockAuto closes old warehouses and buys up inventory, but dang, couldn'y ya at least knock the dust off when putting junk in a box to ship out??
So, onto the installing. I never met a stock spring I didn't want to cut
I need to blow it back apart. The fancy adjustable upper strut mounts didn't come with bearings, and I neglected to transfer the old ones 
But here it is with a decent front ride height and FoST wheels
Waiting on a couple "safe and roadworthy" bits, so I got out the saw. I love this part
Next I harvested the ends off the center resonator, leaving this pile of trash
Snagged a couple glasspacks from a different pile of trash, and cleaned up the ends before shutting down this evening.
sounds good! i am actually surprised with how good those ST wheels look on it...
Two steps forward, one step back. The learning curve with a new-to-me car is always interesting. Now put a deadline on it and we are really having fun....
Forward movement first, the car sounds good going down the road, and having rear brakes is awesome!
As for the step backward, she marked her territory when I pulled back into the shop last night. Piddled on the floor and filled the shop with stinky oil smoke. The front converter is directly below the front of the oil pan. This makes a LOT of smoke, right now, when the front crank seal starts leaking. 
It's behind the timing belt....I have never done a timing belt on an SHO....
In reply to gumby :
Remember, it's just nuts and bolts. I'd come help but I'm a little behind the curve myself right now.
Thanks Bob. Encouraging words are encouraging 
Also thanks to Brian for checking on me tonight and narrowing the focus of our Challenge travel plans. Greatly motivational!
I ordered the seal and a timing belt yesterday morning and tore into the car last night.
Picked up the seal and a balancer tool tonight. The belt looks and feels fresh. Service records indicate less that 10k miles old. Shame on that shop for not putting a crank seal in a 200k mile engine while they were in there.
That is OE, loose in the bore, and fell apart in my hands after removal. Seal rubber is hard as rocks
It is all back together now, and it still runs! Consider this engine demystified On the engine itself are real metric fasteners(12 and 14mm hex vs. American metric with 13 and 15mm hexes), but other than than not weird or scary at all. Everything around the engine is familiar Ford, along with all the engine control bits too.
I am glad my kids are on fall break this week. It allowed me a couple evenings I don't normally have available for this type of detour. Now back to my regularly scheduled prep list. 
I never really bond with, or feel like I own a car, until I spend some good solid wrenching time with it. Perhaps that's similar to what you mean with your "demystified" comment.
T-minus 6 days and counting....
Just knocking stuff off the punch list
Draining the trans involved drilling a hole in the bottom of the case and tapping it for an NPT plug. Messy but effective.
Type F is a magical fluid. I use it in all my manual trans stuff that calls for ATF. This trans has been notchy and grumpy, but got better with miles, to a point. The healing itself thru driving seemed to plateau and the third gear sychro never really got happy. The old fluid came out brown. Put a few miles on it with fresh Type F and third gear is all freed up!
I still need to look at the shifter assembly to see if there is a bushing knocked out. There is quite a bit of fore/aft play in the stick with the trans in gear.
Alignments do as alignments are. I played with the adjustable upper strut mounts I found on RockAuto.
So, loosen those three bolts in the inner circle, and that plate can spin 360° around.
Max camber available -2.5°
Shift the plate to max caster, camber reads -1.6°
Set toe, ship it
Driving the car around last night and this morning, there was still some smoke coming off the front converter. I tried cleaning everything really well to remove residual mess from the crank seal job, and I spent more time on that today. Short drives weren't getting enough run time to quell my doubts that I have fixed the leak, so I made a little road trip(1.25hr each way) to see my vinyl guy. It was a good way to put more miles on the car in varied circumstances vs just driving it back and forth to work, plus I got to have him put decals on the car instead of me fighting with them myself. Much success was had in both the driving and the stickering.
It always seems odd to me that Ford uses Automatic transmission fluid in some manual transmissions, but glad you got third gear working better.
I can't wait to see this car in person
Indy-Guy said:It always seems odd to me that Ford uses Automatic transmission fluid in some manual transmissions, but glad you got third gear working better.
Don't most manuals use atf now? I know t5 trans do. I thought it was a low friction thing.
That moment you have cleaned enough gunk off an engine to realize there is now FRESH oil running down from on high. 
I am forced at this point to officially diagnose this car with high-mileage sit-itis. The symptoms are annoying and can randomly shift from one to the next without rhyme or reason. Unfortunately, there is no known cure for this disease. The complication of adding high-mileage symptoms to the sit-itis means it is sometimes difficult to nail down a root cause, however, treatment remains the same.
I do believe, with an aggressive treatment schedule, I can push this sit-itis into remission and that this car will provide many more years of useful service. Worst case scenario, the current leak is in such a place that I could zip-tie a diaper to the offending location and postpone this round of treatment until after the Challenge.
I am going back in, parts in hand, after work today to get a better look and hopefully knock this out. I don’t have anything better to do, right?
**cough*build book*cough*detail the car*cough**
Does the host hotel have a business center with a printer? Mrs. gumby may be editing my build book on her laptop during the drive to Gainesville....
I got it by the balls now! This is the backside of the timing belt case. The cam seals sit in those grommets and leak oil BOTH inside and outside the case. Enough less inside that one could pass it off as a weep and opt out of the repair....until there is oil EVERYWHERE and you have no idea where it came from!
Bonus, can confirm crank seal is dry now
Nice! Good work!
In reply to gumby :
wow, way to go! Keep after it!
The car is back together again. It has made a couple trips back and forth to the shop and the store. I will drive it to work tomorrow and check it again for leaks afterward. I started roughing out my build book tonight.
I am jealous of those guys who spent the weekend spit shining while I am over here like, "Gee I hope I finally got the oil to stay inside the engine!" Maybe I can finish waxing the oxidation off the paint and run a vacuum thru the interior before we leave on Wednesday....
UN-berkeleyING-BELIEVABLE
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