January 15, 2000
I wasn't in the mood to crawl under the dash yet this afternoon (you've got to be in the right state of mind for that), so I attacked the front suspension. Using a borrrowed pickle fork, I easily separated the tie rod ends from the spindles. Then I soaked the bolts for the power steering to frame bracket, ideler arm, and steering box in penetrating oil (my favorite is Kroil). While I was waiting for that to soak in, I took a wire brush to the both ends of each bolt I was going to take out. I cleaned all the grime away from the head of the bolt, and did my best to clean out the threads on exposed ends. I've found that makes removal a lot easier sometimes.
After I finished brushing off the bolts, I whipped out my handy-dandy impact wrench, fired up the compressor, and all the bolts came out without any problem. Leaving me with this mess...
Yeah, I left it all attached. I didn't even bother to pull off the PS pump, I just lowered the whole mess onto a piece of cardboard and slid it out from under the car.
Now, I've often read articles about rack and pinion conversions where they tout the benefits of taking all this stuff out and replacing it with a rack, but I have yet to see anyone say just how much all this weighs. So I dragged it over to my husband's side of the garage and put it on his shipping scale. It weighs almost 60 pounds! No wonder I could barely lift it onto the scale! So if you do a manual rack conversion from a stock power steering system, that's 60 pounds off the nose of your car. So now you know.
April 17, 00
Well, happy day! The guy who hauled old Bloo away finally brought back the remaining parts that went with it (front and rear suspension, steering and exhaust). He had been busy, and I was very patient, and all work stopped on Deja for a while there, but now that I have my parts, the end is in sight. We might really be cruising before summer is up!
He blocked up old Bloo's shell and just unbolted the suspension and steering and dropped them down, and gave them to me just like that. So there it is, all in a mass of tangled parts. Getting the wheels off was a real bear, with them wiggling all over the place while I tried to work loose the rusted-tight lugnuts. By the time I got the wheels and shocks off though, the whole thing untangled into a recognizable assembly.
And don't think I'm not serious about getting this car back on the road...
After about three hours or wrestling heavy parts around with my husband, Deja has a front suspension. The springs aren't in there yet (I have to go borrow a friends compressor), and the steering isn't on, but my husband has approved of me buying a rack and pinion kit for it now. R&P and five speed!?! Oh man, what more could a girl want?!
Tommorow - the rear suspension!
May 17, 2k
Boy, a lot of people have written about my R&P comment. Too bad I chickened out. It sounds great, but the price is just too steep. When you talk about spending $1k for a manual rack, it seems to only make sense to get the power rack for $1600 and do it right. But $1600?!? I could do a lot of other stuff with that kind of money. So I'm going to stick with the stock manual steering setup for now. I didn't mind driving it like that before, except when I had to park in a tight space. I'll just avoid tight parking spaces and hang onto my money for now.
My mechanic came out to the house and put my springs in for me. I rented a spring compressor and couldn't get it to work, and I borrowed one from a friend and didn't have much luck with it either. I'll tell you the truth, I was scared of it. 600+ lbs per inch of spring just waiting to get loose and cause damage. I felt pretty good about my mechanic coming and doing it, since he's experienced with it, but even he said he doesn't like to mess with these big coil springs. My advice is to leave these things to professionals. After all, this is supposed to be a fun hobby, no point in maiming yourself if you can help it.
August 22, 2000
Well, my husband hooked up the steering for me (I talked him into doing work on the car while I was working on the pedals - see below), and it's nasty looking (kind of rusty), but it works. My mechanic was just telling me how he replaced a the power steering on a classic coupe with the TCP manual Rack, and that it drove great. That sure would be cool, but I'd better hold off. My goal right now is to put together what I've got. I can add cool stuff later.
Well, except for one thing... Power brakes! When I pushed on the pedal of the old pony with manual brakes it stopped..eventually. While looking for a replacement for rusty old Bloo I test drove a '68 with power brakes and nearly put myself through the windsheild at the first stop sign - wow - right away I know I had to have that! So I put up the $$$ and called Sacramento Mustang and they sent me the new Scott Drake power booster that works with the manual pedal, so I wouldn't have to take my pedals apart as well.
I could have taken my pedals apart, they were right there on the bench, I just didn't want to. These are the old pedals from old Bloo. I had to pull the pedals out of Deja because it was an automatic, and swap in these pedals, so I would have a clutch pedal. Just another thing to do when swapping a car from an automatic to a manual tranny.
The only trick to getting the pedals out was that I had to remove the guage cluster so I had a little more room to manuver the pedal support around, then it dropped out under the dash. The steering column was already out of the way. When I put these pedals in I had my husband waiting on the engine bay side of the firewall, and as soon as I got the pedal support up where it belonged he stuck a couple bolts in to hold it in place. It's definitly a two person job because the pedal assembly is heavy and awkward, especially when you're on your back pushing it up under the dash.
So, now I have a clutch pedal. There was a round indentation where the clutch pedal pushrod goes through the firewall. I tapped on it with a hammer and it sounded different than the rest of the firewall, so I tapped it a few more times and it popped right out. It must have been pre-cut at the factory, but only popped out if they needed it (if they were building a manual tranny car) on the assembly line. Well, that was much better than crawling under there with a hole-saw.
While pulling off the pedals I removed the master cylinder and the brake proportioning valve. The power booster master cylinder is significantly bigger than the old one. It nearly touches the shock tower when I hold it up where it will go. Here they are together. Look at that bad boy! He's huge!! Supposedly this master cylinder will work with drums all around or rear drums/front discs (at least that's what they tell me). That's good, because I have my eyes on a set of front discs, but not until I get the car running again. Right now I'm just assembling what I've got (I have to keep reminding myself of that - there's so many cool things to buy).
So, the tricky part of this install is I have to bend new brake lines to go from the master cylinder to the brake proportioning valve. The part I wasn't expecting is that the valves are different.
Here both valves are positioned side by side, both oriented the way they would be installed if I used the stock location bolt holes. It doesn't look right to me. I was hoping that at least the hard lines coming into it from the front and rear brakes wouldn't have to change. Now I'm not so sure. I'll be calling for help on this soon.