1979 242DL - Analog Motoring

Minor update...

I decided to improve upon the deteriorating rubber hose between the turbo and the MAF and replaced it with a 60mm silicone 45* elbow and a 60-70mm silicone reducer from eBay and a section of 45* 2" schedule 40 electrical conduit elbow from Home Depot. I drilled a hole in the conduit section to accept the vent hose from the catch can.




I also seem to have resolved the coolant overpressure issue I was having. I think the root of it was that my radiator cap was on too tight. I have it just "snug" now and the system seems to be working fine. I also decided to replace the thermostat with an 82C unit just because. Interestingly the temp gauge reads noticeably lower than with the 87C unit I took out (about 8:00 instead of 9:00).

I decided to also try a "T" cam instead of the "V" and decided that I like the powerband of the "T" better. It does not pull as hard as the "V" but for the type of driving I do and the engine setup I have, I think the "T" is the right choice. I sold the "V" cam to a fellow Tbricker so hopefully it can be put to good use.

I made a little timelapse of removing the cam just for kicks.
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Been having an intermittent issue where the engine will cut out and die under acceleration. I am thinking that the issue lies in the ignition system b/c when the engine will cut out, the tach will go to 0 but the engine will still be rotating (still in gear). Also when trying to restart the car, the tach won't move while cranking. Previously the issue was more like a hiccup where it would cut out for a moment and then restart itself while the car was moving, but today it cut out and did not want to restart right away (it cranked fine tho). I sat along the road for maybe 10-15 min and then the car started up and I went on my way. Another thing I noticed was that while on the highway my AFR was down around 10-11:1 where it is normally around 14.5. Not sure if it is related, or if the computer went into "limp-home" mode b/c it detected a fault...I don't have a way to check if any codes are being triggered.


My initial theory is this:
The tach in my car is driven off of the "-" terminal on the coil, so for the tach to stop working the coil had to stop triggering which means that either the coil is going bad or the power stage is faulty. After some digging I realized that the EZK117 ignition system is meant to use a different coil with lower resistance primary windings. Since I still have the original coil from the breakerless ignition system, it seems logical to start with swapping in the correct coil.

Love this car. Good Luck with the stall issue.

Thanks!

I changed the oil yesterday and realized that the bolt that holds the alternator adjuster bracket to the block had broken off and the alternator belts were really loose as well as the negative battery cable . I tightened the battery cable and replaced the broken bolt and the car seemed to be running well today...maybe that's all the issue was. AFRs were back to normal as well. I've still got my eye out for a different coil to complete the EZK ignition swap.

Excellent!

I replaced the breakerless coil (Bosch 0221122006) with an EZK coil (Bosch 0221122334) and surprisingly the engine runs smoother now, especially under high-load situations. There was a bit of "choppyness" when accelerating in 3rd or 4th gear from ~2000 rpm which is now gone. I figured it was driveline vibration, but seems like it was spark-related.




My flasher relay has started acting up. It will work ok for the first few minutes of driving and then be very intermittent (see below video). It will do the same thing with both turn signals and the hazards. I'll try cleaning the relay and see what happens.
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Also, just a shot from cruising around the other night. I still need to borrow a friend's buffer and get after the paint. I also am keeping my eye out for another set of wheels. I like the look of the gold/red, but 14" wheels aren't doing me any favors in the handling department. My brother has a set of Virgos that he may trade me, but I'd really love to pick up a set of Geminis. However, they are out of my budget at this point.

I want your tach dash.

There's something about this car that I really appreciate, It seems honest. Keep up the good work!

LC4CARL said:

I want your tach dash.

Click to expand...

I have a couple spare early tachs.

Whoa, I hadn't checked this thread in a while. Dude, this is awesome work. It's neat that you got your car back, but the work that you've put into this to get it back to form *and then some*, is really something. Great job!

bruspeed said:

There's something about this car that I really appreciate, It seems honest. Keep up the good work!

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SquareD said:

Whoa, I hadn't checked this thread in a while. Dude, this is awesome work. It's neat that you got your car back, but the work that you've put into this to get it back to form *and then some*, is really something. Great job!

Click to expand...

Thanks for the compliments!

I fixed the turn signal issue by taking out the flasher relay, removing the plastic cover and soaking the whole assembly in rubbing alcohol for a bit. Turn signals work great now.

A couple other electrical gremlins have been appearing, but I "think" I have the causes identified...

#1) I've still had the engine randomly shut off while driving. It will always crank strongly but not start. Like I mentioned in an earlier post the tach doesn't move while cranking during these situations so that points me to the ignition system. Most recently, I reseated the powerstage connector and then the car started. Once I got the car home I took out the powerstage, cleaned the contacts thoroughly as well as the connector, applied some dielectric grease and reinstalled.

#2) One morning the car was running rough, AFR was full rich all the time and had no power. Reseating the MAF sensor connector fixed that issue, so I also took the time to thoroughly clean that connector & contacts and apply dielectric grease.

While I was cleaning contacts, I also cleaned and retightened all ground connections in the engine bay for good measure. I haven't put many miles on the car since doing this so the jury is still out on if I truly fixed the issues or not.

oldschoolvolvo said:

Thanks for the compliments!

I fixed the turn signal issue by taking out the flasher relay, removing the plastic cover and soaking the whole assembly in rubbing alcohol for a bit. Turn signals work great now.

A couple other electrical gremlins have been appearing, but I "think" I have the causes identified...

#1) I've still had the engine randomly shut off while driving. It will always crank strongly but not start. Like I mentioned in an earlier post the tach doesn't move while cranking during these situations so that points me to the ignition system. Most recently, I reseated the powerstage connector and then the car started. Once I got the car home I took out the powerstage, cleaned the contacts thoroughly as well as the connector, applied some dielectric grease and reinstalled.

#2) One morning the car was running rough, AFR was full rich all the time and had no power. Reseating the MAF sensor connector fixed that issue, so I also took the time to thoroughly clean that connector & contacts and apply dielectric grease.

While I was cleaning contacts, I also cleaned and retightened all ground connections in the engine bay for good measure. I haven't put many miles on the car since doing this so the jury is still out on if I truly fixed the issues or not.

Click to expand...

Gotta love our electrical gremlins, on the way home from work today, I was stopped at a light glanced down, and noticed my tach was stuck at 2k. I jabbed the throttle and it didn't move, I quickly turned the car off, tach went to 0, fired it back up, and it's worked perfectly since. I don't even.

Something I've been noticing is that my car sits higher in the front than the rear. It's lower than it was originally, but I wish it was dropped a bit more in the front. The springs are the old black ipd springs (no marking, but that's how they were described when I bought them). I do have 15A's strut plates in the front. However the car does not have power steering or a/c which may be the reason...idk. I don't really want to take apart the struts again, but maybe cutting the dead coils off of the front springs would drop it down a bit.

Old side profile pic for reference:

Borrowed a friend's orbital buffer and cleaned up the paint. It still has some areas with deep scratches but it's a big improvement over what it was, I'm content.

I also swapped on some Virgos.

YES YES YES</a>

oldschoolvolvo said:

Something I've been noticing is that my car sits higher in the front than the rear. It's lower than it was originally, but I wish it was dropped a bit more in the front. The springs are the old black ipd springs (no marking, but that's how they were described when I bought them). I do have 15A's strut plates in the front. However the car does not have power steering or a/c which may be the reason...idk. I don't really want to take apart the struts again, but maybe cutting the dead coils off of the front springs would drop it down a bit.

Old side profile pic for reference:

Click to expand...

So glad you went through the effort of removing that ****ty spraybomb job. The kid that did it really does deserve a punt in the nuts.

Why not just raise the rear? I think I may be getting old. I also think I may swap in stock length struts on Pig. Shocking, I know.

Hmm, hadn't thought of that. Not a bad idea tho, would be easy enough to do with a simple spacer.

Time for an update…

TL;DR…T5 swap + adjustable panhard rod + BNE Select strut mounts.

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I decided to swap out the M45 in favor of a T5. The main reasons for doing this were to gain a 5th gear/better shifter “feel”/different gear ratios.

Thanks to the available adapters and info on this board it was a rather straightforward process.
Helpful links:
http://www.aaronreedbaker.com/t5swap.html
Verodubs' T5 swap: http://turbobricks.com/forums/showthread.php?p=5419203

I did the swap by myself in my garage with a floor jack and the car on jackstands.

I tried to keep costs down as much as possible but I still have ~$1k into it. The primary cost drivers for me were the transmission itself and the adapter.

For posterity’s sake, here is my parts list and corresponding vendors:

-169 transmission (3.35 1st & 0.68 5th) - craigslist
87 Mustang GT driveshaft - craigslist
DeeWorks T5 adapter - Yoshifab
Mustang driveshaft adapter - Yoshifab
<del>Rhino-Pac/AMS 07-030 clutch kit for 93 4-cyl Mustang (8.5”/10-spline clutch disc) – sale @ PepBoys</del>
SM9721 SVO disc - California Clutch (aka Clutchnet)
<del>(disc has Valeo/LUK stamped on it, so it looks like it’s just a rebranded piece)</del>
V8 Fox Mustang clutch alignment tool – RockAuto
<del>V8 Fox Mustang pilot bearing (Timken FC65174) – RockAuto</del>
6003-2RS ball bearing - Fastenal <--ball bearing > needle bearing
Anchor 2530 trans mount (V8 Fox Mustang) – RockAuto
4x6x?” steel plate – eBay
<del>Elring 044590 RMS (brown Viton) - eBay</del>
Elring 044598 RMS - eEuroparts
<del>SKF throwout bearing - eEuroparts
Re-used stock Sachs 3082 185 231 pressure plate (was not having any slip issues with M45 setup, has 23k miles on it)</del>
Saab 9-3 Viggen pressure plate - eEuroparts
Mustang speedometer cable – Late Model Restoration
<del>23T speedo gear – Late Model Restoration</del> *don't use 23T speedo gears!*
6T speedo drive gear - eBay
21T speedo driven gear - Late Model Restoration
T5 reverse light pigtail – Late Model Restoration
New 240 clutch return spring – eBay (mine was almost rusted through)
Delrin clutch cable bushing – STS Machining (77volvo245)
Generic short shifter – eBay

Install notes:
-The T5 is much longer than the M45 and takes some more finesse to get it up into the trans tunnel and mated up with the block. I needed to install the shifter after the trans was situated in the tunnel otherwise there wasn’t enough room for it to rotate into place. I did not need to hammer any part of the tunnel.
-With my car being an early 240, it does not have x sets of tapped holes in the frame rails for the trans x-member. I installed the x-member as far back as possible and used 2x #14 sheet metal screws and fender washers to make up for the 2x missing attachment points (apparently later 240s have an additional set of holes in the frame rails).
-I followed what aaronreedbaker did for the trans mount and just had a piece of steel welded to my existing x-member.
-clutch was adjusted normally and did not require any spacing of the pivot ball
-stock clutch fork return spring can be reused, there is an attachment point on the side of the T5
-stock clutch disc thickness: 7.75 mm (23k miles)
-Mustang clutch disc thickness: 8.25 mm
-M45 weight w/o bellhousing: 59 lb
-T5 weight w/o bellhousing: 75 lb
-I corrected the pinion angle and centered the rear axle
-Speedo cable: The Mustang cable and Volvo cable both use the same size square inner drive cable (same length), but obviously have different outer casings. I grafted a Mustang speedo cable to the Volvo cable by cutting about 6” off of both the Mustang and Volvo cables at the speedo end and swapping them, using a piece of ?” hose to hold them together. There is enough interference fit that I did not use any clamps. Using a speedo gear calculator, I swapped the black speedo gear for a 23T white gear. My speedo reads 3-5 mph high...close enough for me.
-I did not like the jog in the Mustang shift lever, so I cut it up and had it re-welded to mimic the Volvo shifter angle. I also picked up a $40 eBay short shifter. Mechanically it is very simple and seems to work fine. I did replace the included cap screws with better quality ones and used Loctite on all fasteners.










I also made my stock panhard rod adjustable with Steinjager hardware. I cut ~6” in out of my stock panhard rod and set the turnbuckle to allow for ~1” of “shortening” from the stock length.

The Steinjager pieces I used were:
-J0028417 ?-16 LH/RH turnbuckle
-3/4-16 LH threaded bung
-3/4-16 RH threaded bung




I also picked up a set of BNE Select strut mounts. They are very nice units as expected. I installed using bolts in “Position 1” due to my stock diameter springs and it is worth noting that these mounts will allow the spring to touch the upper strut tower which will cause the steering to bind. This would not be an issue with smaller diameter coilover springs. In the end I set my camber at -1* and did not have any issues with binding. You can see the camber/caster change that is built into the mounts from this pic with a 15A support plate for reference.




After reading some suspension threads, I decided to swap the 25mm rear ipd swaybar for the stock 19mm bar which made bumps and expansion joints less harsh.

Overall, the most noticeable item after completing the swap is that the car is quieter while driving. I attribute this to the rear-end previously not being optimally aligned and/or worn bearings in the driveshaft with the M45 setup. Having a 5th gear is great and the car drives very nicely so far.

Everyone can appreciate the detailed posts. T5 swap parts lists are always handy. Awesome project!

Looks good. Wanna make meanother one of those cross members?