Build Thread 1978 Fairmont. I bet somebody back home’s thinkin’…I wonder why he don’t write..?

[CarMichael Angelo]

Usually, when something is too good to be true, it never is.
Today I remove the old ring gear, and bolted on the 3.31 gear.
Since the factory cast iron shim was cracked from the last time I fought to get the new diff installed in place of the old T-loc that was there, I replaced them with the new steel ones that I bought this week. The old one measured .260, and I stacked together the required shims to make up that amount.
I reused the old pinion shim,and salvaged and reused the old pinion bearing, I crushed the crush sleeve to 16” pounds ( I rechecked it).
I re-used the carrier bearings, and kept the shim thickness exactly as it was before.
I installed the diff, and the thing went in with almost zero hassle.
I made this little tool to seat the shims, I think it made things go much better.

The shims tapped in like toast in a toaster.
I rattled the ring gear,….I knew that it was gonna be close to right.
The old gears had .012 backlash, these new ones had .011.
Specs call for between .008, and .012.
I’m calling perfect.
I painted the ring gear and held it while I rolled the thing back and forth against the pinion,
And this is what rolled around

When you look at the old ring gear, I think you see that exact same pattern..

Did I just get lucky here?
Am I done with this gear change in one hour’s time?

 

[7991LXnSHO]

Whatever are you talking about Willis? All it’s gotta be is close enough to “make” it fit.
If, dimensionally it’ll fit and leave me enough overlap to trim it, I’ll cut the bulges/ excess out and have it sewn back together if I can hide that surgery under the console.

Sewing carpet is above and beyond the normal. With your gear set luck, maybe now’s the time to try.
I almost forgot about making flat rubber flooring work in my first car since the “rubber carpet” was not, and still is not, reproduced. Some things are easier if you don’t know they are not supposed to work well. This time I’m going with custom made carpet (from Clark’s, not from ACC.)
Have fun.

 

[RaggedGT]

Usually, when something is too good to be true, it never is.
Today I remove the old ring gear, and bolt on the 3.31 gear.
Since the factory cast iron shim was cracked from the last time I fought to get the new diff installed in place of the old T-loc that was there, I replaced them with the new steel ones that I bought this week. The old one measured .260, and I stacked together the required shims to make up that amount.
I reused the old pinion shim,and salvaged and reused the old pinion bearing, I crushed the crush sleeve to 16” pounds ( I rechecked it).
I re-used the carrier bearings, and kept the shim thickness exactly as it was before.
I installed the diff, and the thing went in with almost zero hassle.
I made this little tool to seat the shims, I think it made things go much better.

The shims tapped in like toast in a toaster.
I rattled the ring gear,….I knew that it was gonna be close to right.
The old gears had .012 backlash, these new ones had .011.
Specs call for between .008, and .012.
I’m calling perfect.
I painted the ring gear and held it while I rolled the thing back and forth against the pinion,
And this is what rolled around

When you look at the old ring gear, I think you see that exact same pattern..

Did I just get lucky here?
Am I done with this gear change in one hour’s time?

Yup. Good job mike

 

[CarMichael Angelo]

Yup. Good job mike

since you’re the only guy that chimed in,..i guess you’re saying that the pattern looks good?
* Another case of the only time that the tech in this update applies to every freakin car in this forum, and i get crickets.

 

[90sickfox]

You shoulda waited till atleast midnite. I think it looks pretty good.

 

[02 281 GT]

since you’re the only guy that chimed in,..i guess you’re saying that the pattern looks good?
* Another case of the only time that the tech in this update applies to every freakin car in this forum, and i get crickets.

I'm no expert, but I would just verify the contact pattern against the Ford Performance 8.8 ring and pinion installation instructions. The relevant bit starts on page 24.

For what it's worth, based on those pages, yours looks good.

 

[RaggedGT]

since you’re the only guy that chimed in,..i guess you’re saying that the pattern looks good?
* Another case of the only time that the tech in this update applies to every freakin car in this forum, and i get crickets.

Yes sir, I’d be pretty happy with that pattern

 

[slipkid269]

Bars look good from here. I learned a trick with fisheye's or other issues with paint. I cheat and use a heat gun to quick dry the spot before it has a chance to seperate. Sometimes it seems no matter how much you clean and prep there's always a spot that's gonna give you trouble.

Watching a show on youtube right now, "The Legend of Bob Glidden", that Fairmont he drove was un-defeated! The ugly duckling. At the part where they are talking about Lee Shepard showing ALL the pro stock guys driving down the track in a missing man formation, totally inspiring! Never seen this. One good thing about the internet is you can see all the things that just weren't available back in the day.

Glad I didn't have to go through 600 pages by the way!

 

[7991LXnSHO]

Usually, when something is too good to be true, it never is.
Today I remove the old ring gear, and bolted on the 3.31 gear.
Since the factory cast iron shim was cracked from the last time I fought to get the new diff installed in place of the old T-loc that was there, I replaced them with the new steel ones that I bought this week. The old one measured .260, and I stacked together the required shims to make up that amount.
I reused the old pinion shim,and salvaged and reused the old pinion bearing, I crushed the crush sleeve to 16” pounds ( I rechecked it).
I re-used the carrier bearings, and kept the shim thickness exactly as it was before.
I installed the diff, and the thing went in with almost zero hassle.
I made this little tool to seat the shims, I think it made things go much better.

The shims tapped in like toast in a toaster.
I rattled the ring gear,….I knew that it was gonna be close to right.
The old gears had .012 backlash, these new ones had .011.
Specs call for between .008, and .012.
I’m calling perfect.
I painted the ring gear and held it while I rolled the thing back and forth against the pinion,
And this is what rolled around

When you look at the old ring gear, I think you see that exact same pattern..

Did I just get lucky here?
Am I done with this gear change in one hour’s time?

Congrats. Is this what you needed? I figured you were posting that you got it right and did not need helpful feedback. It’s good to win in the first round.

 

[CarMichael Angelo]

Congrats. Is this what you needed? I figured you were posting that you got it right and did not need helpful feedback. It’s good to win in the first round.

Leading up to my decision to attempt this, there were 3-4 guys telling me that it wasn’t that hard. I posted a pic of the pattern hoping a couple of them would either confirm as good, or flag that pattern as suspect before i closed the rear end up and filled it with oil.

 

[droopie85gt]

Usually, when something is too good to be true, it never is.
Did I just get lucky here?
Am I done with this gear change in one hour’s time?

Is this a trick question? I mean it looks good, but you still could redo it. But get it driving and make burnout videos first.

 

[CarMichael Angelo]

When I was a little kid, my parents bought me this little corduroy coverall outfit, with a big red stop sign on the ass that said “Don’t Spank”. Every time i thought I was gonna get my ass beat, I’d run to my room and put those on. Eventually i got too big and out grew them.

Now days, I have a different go to outfit,

Ive taken Wednesday thru Saturday off. Having this many straight days in a row off is paying big progress dividends.

The rear is back together and filled. The driveshaft is installed, the trans is filled, and the tunnel is back in place. The dash bars are installed, and I’m starting to restructure the wiring. the steering shaft is back in, and the starter is installed.
And I did all of that today.

I think I have tomorrow left before Kate pitches a fit. If that turns out to be the case, I should have the car wired, and the steering column back in. If I had the carpet, I’d be almost able to consider being done with it by Sunday.
But I don’t have that. MOF, I don’t know when it’ll get here.
I’ve decided that I’m gonna wire the neutral safety switch to a toggle as opposed to trying to come up with some sort of clutch switch. If I woulda thought about it when I was building the hydraulic system for the clutch, I woulda put a pressure switch in the line and wired it to that. The benefit of having it wired to a toggle is that it serves as a kill switch to keep it from being started by someone else.

 

[95BlueStallion]

Not a bad idea on the switch.

 

[CarMichael Angelo]

Is this a trick question? I mean it looks good, but you still could redo it. But get it driving and make burnout videos first.

No,…of course not. Have you ever installed a ring and pinion? It’s nothing I would want to do on a recurring basis. The Manual trans that is now in the car is also something that I would dread having to remove. Although mine went together like clockwork ( only because I reused everything that was in place on the previous setup).
Im sure there are those few that rolled their eyes when they read that, but what they might not know is that everything that came out of that rear end only has 3-4000 miles on it tops.

 

[CarMichael Angelo]

Not a bad idea on the switch.

See,..how easy was that?…They call that “ offering advice, or an opinion”.

 

[95BlueStallion]

I’ve never done gears, and didn’t figure you needed a “good job, way to go, keep it up.” However, I hope it is in-fact all good and you can be do it once Mike for a change.

 

[CarMichael Angelo]

Carpet is here. It’s almost wired. I’m getting close.

Its good that I had these last three days off. It’d be another month if I had to rely on one day a week to do stuff. I want to open the carpet box and see what it looks like, but that’ll have to wait till i get my next day in the garage, cause today ain’t gonna be it.

 

[CarMichael Angelo]

I do believe that I’m gonna be able to make this work. I’ll seam a center section in ( that’s actually hidden under the console, and I’ll have to cut and have the rear seamed like the front, and I’ll have a custom carpet for about 300.00 total.

 

[95BlueStallion]

You always come up with ways to be more and more unique. I dig it.

 

[CarMichael Angelo]

I was wondering yesterday how long I’ve been at this most recent “upgrade” since my decision to take a perfectly good running car and disable it, in order to change out the transmission.

Im at the 45 day mark as of this writing.

And I’m almost afraid to count how much money I’ve thrown at this thing in that time.
* almost.

1600.00 for the trans.
850.00 for the adapter.
400.00 for the shifter.
600.00 for the clutch.
250.00 for the hydraulics for the clutch.
200.00 for the driveshaft.
200.00 for the rear gears.

4100.00.
That makes my jaw drop open..

The 4l80 was sold off for 1500.00
The old adapter was sold for 550.00

The difference makes the actual cost of this upgrade a little over 2000.00

Im able to close my mouth again. ( As long as I don’t take into consideration what the 4l80/converter/shift kit/adapter originally cost me when I bought that junk 15 months ago….Then it’d actually be more like 2500.00)

If everything works. The engine starts, the clutch disengages, the trans shifts, the rear gears don’t howl, and nothing leaks,…then this should be a true power “ upgrade”. Just turning the driveshaft by hand to tighten up the bolts took markedly less effort to spin.

The dash and console looks good again, with no chips and scratches. And I just love the new carpet. I can’t wait to get the center of the front section seamed back together so I can put the seats back in. It actually fit so good, all i’ll have to do is fix the gap up front, and have the rear bound with the black vinyl seam. ( But I have an alternative plan to fix that that i can do instead,…..i’ll just have to see how that goes).