Comp Cams XE250H Camshaft

I happened to find a Comp Cams XE250H camshaft on sale in FMOC forum and decided to buy it. It had been installed in an engine but had not been ran so it was basically new. According to Comp Cams webpage, it offers "very strong torque, excellent mileage, smooth idle". Sounds good so I compared the specs a bit.

Parameter	Original	XE250H
Intake duration	266	250
Exhaust duration	244	260
Intake duration @ 0.050"	198	206
Exhaust duration @ 0.050"	198	212
Intake valve lobe lift	0.2303"	0.289"
Exhaust valve lobe lift	0.2375"	0.296"

I found the original cam specs from an online discussion so I'm not sure how accurate they are.

The XE250H seems to have more lift and duration when compared to the original but it is still a really tame camshaft that will probably run out of steam at about 5000 RPM. Oh well, my engine probably will not see those RPMs often so it should be fine. Especially with original intake, heads and exhaust. We'll see when the engine runs next time...

Block And Head Inspection

I drove to a machine shop in Mäntsälä with my block and heads to have them checked. They took a quick measurement of the cylinders and said that they had as much as 0.016 to 0.018 inches of wear. Way too much to be fixed by just honing. The block must be bored and I'll have to get new pistons.

My heads were a bit better. The machinist said that the valve guides were not too worn yet and the heads did not need a complete rebuild. I'll have to decide if I'll use them or the other, already rebuild heads I have.

Now I would have to get the pistons before the block could be bored. The machine shop did not have time to work with my parts before January anyway so I had a few weeks to buy them. After a few calls I was suggested to order Sealed Power hypereutectic pistons and moly rings as I was not building an engine with high power level. They were 0.030 inches oversized and should easily be strong enough.

One bad thing with them was the large valve reliefs. They would drop the compression ratio a bit. Maybe about half point from the original 9.8:1. I'll know the final ratio when the bottom end is back together.

Disassembling The Engine Part 4

My engine disassembly is finally finished. I removed everything from the block while it was still in the car. Including pistons. They came out quite easily by wiggling them a bit. The steps in the cylinder walls were so small that the piston rings came over them without problems. Finally I bolted some chains to the block and my friend came over and we lifted it out.

I'll take the block and heads to a machine shop next week. We also removed two valves to see how they looked. They wiggled slightly in the guide but I'm not experienced enough to say if that was too much. I'll have to ask what the machinist thinks. While waiting to get my parts back, I think I'll have enough to do with the engine bay. I'll clean and paint it before putting the engine back in.

Rebuilding my Autolite 4100 carb also took a couple of nights. I cleaned it as much as possible and used a Hygrade kit to replace seals, needles, seats and accelerator pump parts. The carburetor was completely covered with black dirt so I used a lot of cleaner and tooth brushes on it. I did get most of the crud off and, while not like new, it is much better now.

Disassembling The Engine Part 3

Yeah, as the replacement engine turned out to be in even worse condition than my original, I decided to bite the bullet and restore the original motor now. That meant tearing it down. I had the Mustang moved to the rented garage and got to work.

A few hours later I had removed the intake manifold and pulled the heads. Things looked pretty good inside the engine.

I could feel a slight ridge in the cylinder walls with tip of my fingers but they did not catch my nail when running it across them. I'm really hoping it can be removed without overboring the cylinders as that would mean getting new pistons. Well, I'll take the block to a machinist and ask what can be done.

New Engine? More Like New Turd

After getting the engine to a stand, it was easy to start the investigation. I cleaned it a bit and removed the oil pan. I was greeted with this sight.

The pan and oil pump pickup were covered in brown sludge and pieces of hard plastic. I tried finding the source of the plastic and the best explanation was perhaps the valve seals. I checked them and the rubber seals were there but I'm not sure if they should contain plastic too.

It was not looking good but perhaps at least the bearings would be better. They weren't. I only opened two main caps and had seen enough. Here's bearing number two.

It's also possible to see the camshaft in the background. Many of its lobes are unhealthy orange in color. Just to be sure, I also checked the bearing number 4.

Yeaaah, the bearings are worse than in my own original engine. Final nail to the coffin were the spark plugs. Two of them seemed pretty oily so either the valve seals or piston rings had been leaking.

There's no sense in putting this engine to my car so I guess I'll sell its good pieces to someone and use the money to fix my original engine. It will probably take most of the winter so I'm not sure if I can drive the car next summer after all...

New Engine

While investigating my engine I came to the conclusion that just throwing new bearings in it would probably not help much. The piston rings, valves, valve springs, camshaft and everything else is most likely also 47 years old and in need of some TLC. A complete rebuild would take the whole winter and not to mention all my money. So, I needed another option.

A possible solution appeared to FMOC forum in the form of a 302 engine sales ad. It was a 69 block with 289 heads and all accessories. The ad said that it was in good condition and the price was right so I reserved it. A couple of day later I drove over to check it out.

The seller had not driven with the engine himself but said that it had been in a car when he bought it. Previous owner had been using it a lot and it seemed fine then. I took a risk and bought it hoping I could clean it up and put it in my car temporarily. This way I would have time to fix the rest of the car and drive next summer. I'll rebuild the original engine later and put it back.

While at it, I realized that doing this engine work in my cold and damp garage was guaranteed to cause problems. FMOC forum came to the rescue again as I found a warm garage for rent a couple of kilometers from my home. I checked it out and took it for the winter. Hopefully I won't have to move there completely to get the car back to running condition in the following months...

First I will investigate my new engine a bit so I can trust it to run next summer. I think I'll open the oil pan and check the bottom end for wear. If everything seems good, I'll just clean and paint it and lift it in my Mustang. Let's hope I won't find any surprises...

Disassembling The Engine Part 2

Finally it was time to drop the crankshaft. Everything around it had been removed so I could get it out of the engine. First I had to remove all the connecting rod caps. They are attached with just two nuts so I removed them and pulled the caps. I stored them in order so I can put them back in the same positions.

Next I loosened the main caps and made sure the crank came down with them. Finally, very carefully, I removed caps and took the crank down.

It was time to check the damage. The crank journals seemed pretty good and only two had some small scratched that I could feel with my finger. Hopefully I can just have it polished and put it back.

The bearings had taken most of the damage. Here's a photo of the mains.

All of then have worn down to the copper. No wonder the oil pressure dropped a bit when idling. The rod bearings were not much better.

So now everything necessary has hopefully been taken off the engine so I can service the parts and start putting everything back together. We'll see how that goes. I'm especially nervous how I can get the crank back in and attach all the connecting rods...

Disassembling The Engine Part 1

With the course laid in, it was time to tear down the engine. First I drained the coolant and removed the radiator. This gave me enough room to get the fan out. Then I disconnected the alternator wires, unbolted it and lifted it out. Now I could get to the water pump and remove it.

The harmonic balancer was a bit more tricky to get out. I removed the three bolts that hold the pulley to the damper and then had to get the large crank bolt out. It is so tight that you need to prevent the engine from turning. I did that by adding two of the flywheel bolts to the back of the crank, placed my jack handle between them and turned the engine until the handle touched the exhaust. Now the crank would not turn and I could get the bolt out.

Finally I needed a puller to get the damper out. My friend had one so I borrowed it. He had made it by welding two pieces of iron together and drilling four holes to it. Simple but effective and I soon had the balancer out.

DIY harmonic balancer puller

Now the road was clear for the timing chain cover. I unbolted the fuel pump from it and then removed the cover itself.

The timing chain itself can be pulled out by just removing the fuel pump eccentric and then wiggling the gears until they come free. The chain had quite a lot of play so it's definitely time to replace it.

Before continuing to drop the crank, I removed the oil pump and then cleaned the parts a bit to see what new stuff I needed. Luckily most were in pretty good condition. The chain cover was almost like new. No rust, just a lot of dirt. I'll clean it, paint it and put it back.

The water pump was also really good. So good that I suspect that it has been replaced at some point. No rust inside or out and no play in the shaft. No need to replace it either.

Finally I checked the damper and again found nothing wrong with it. The rubber seemed good so it can be reused after some more cleaning.

So only the oil pump, timing chain and bearings need to be replaced. Unless I find more surprises...

Old and new oil pumps

New Federal Mogul timing chain

Plans For The Engine

I've been going through some options for my engine. Option one would be a full rebuild. That would mean pulling the engine out, completely tearing it apart, machining the block and heads, probably buying a lot of new parts and putting the engine back together. Of course this gives the best results but to do that in Finland, you could buy a completely new engine with the same money.

Option two is to just replace the worn parts with the engine in the car and driving to the sunset without breaking the bank. Well, driving in about six months when the snows melt again...

As I'm not a major owner of Supercell (a small game company that was partially sold to the Japanese for 1,1 billion euros (1.5 billion dollars) last week), I think I will have to go with option two. I will buy new main bearings, rod bearings, oil pump and timing chain. And perhaps a new water pump. By replacing those, I should be able to use the engine just fine without a complete rebuild as it was not burning oil and ran well.

First I needed to know the bearing size. My old bearings had these markings:
C50E-6A338-A-B
CLEV
FoMoCo
T-77(r)
65

What I could find, it is the original size Ford small block bearing made in 1965. The original bearing that my engine left the factory with. Pretty amazing that it's not worn more that what it is...

Project Blows Up

I've been preparing the car for the new transmission for the past days. I cleaned the underbody by scraping and brushing as much dirt out as possible. It seemed that some rust proofing had been added there at some point and it had worked really well. All floors seemed to be original and in really good condition from underneath. I just hope that the floors would have been rustproofed better from the inside too.

I sprayed some new rustproofing to the floors and turned my attention to the engine. Clearly some oil had been leaking from the rear seal or through the flywheel bolt holes.

I decided to drop the oil pan and replace the rear main seal and also investigate the bearings now that it was easy. I had to remove the crossmember under the engine and loosen the sway bar to get the pan out. It was a tight fit but I didn't have to remove the steering linkage. Everything looked pretty original inside the engine too.

Pretty much everything was covered in brown old oil. I have a feeling the engine has never been rebuilt. It was time to remove the end cap and replace the seal under it. It seemed to be the really old rope seal so I would have to loosen all the main bearing caps to drop the crank a bit to get the top half out. Unfortunately I did not get that far when I checked the bearing.

Yeah, it does not look too good. So now I will need to replace the main bearings. And while at it, rebuild the whole engine most likely. This project has officially now blown up...

Resurfaced Flywheel

I asked about my flywheel condition from FMOC (Finnish Mustang Owners Club) forum and found a fellow hobbyist who said that he had the necessary tools to resurface it. I drove there the same evening and he was not kidding. Drills, lathe, mill etc. There are not many machining jobs that could not be handled in his basement.

We started with the bellhousing. I had used some hours (and two cans of Brakleen) to clean it earlier so handling it would not be so disgusting. Drilling two holes to it did not take long and it was ready to accept the adapter plate. I think I'll paint it before installing it back to the car.

Then it was time to attach the flywheel to the lathe. He used a dial gauge to make sure it would rotate straight and put the machine to work. It took a few hours and finally we had taken 1,7 mm (0.067 inches) off the surface to get all the hardened parts out. I checked the 1966 Mustang shop manual and it says: "If it is necessary to remove more than 0.045 inch of stock from the original thickness, replace the fly wheel."

I read some discussions in the web and found that the durability should not be a problem (especially with a stock motor) but the clutch could be. Or more closely, the clutch fork might not have enough range to disengage the clutch any more. I have to do some investigation if adding some washers to the fork pivot could fix this issue or should I just get a new flywheel. At least the old one looks quite good now.

T5 Swap Part 2

It was time to push on with the transmission swap. I watched the CJ Pony Parts video and wrote a list how I should proceed with the project. So let's go through it.

1. Remove The Shifter

To remove the shifter, I simply lifted the rubber boot and unscrewed the two bolts under it. Seems that there should be four screws holding the rubber boot to the transmission tunnel but mine were missing.

2. Drain The Oil

I had done this already by unscrewing the drain plug with an adjustable wrench and letting the oil out to a container.

3. Remove The Drive Shaft

Again an easy job of unscrewing four nuts at the back of the drive shaft, removing the U bolts and then pulling the yoke out of the transmission. I will probably have to shorten the drive shaft before putting it back in but that needs to be measured when the T5 is in the car.

4. Remove the Starter Motor

The starter is held on to the bellhousing with two bolts. I removed those and left the starter hanging by the cable from the starter relay. Then I loosened the cable retainer bolt and removed the starter motor.

5. Separator Plate Bolts

While working with the starter, I also removed the two bolts from the front of the bellhousing that hold the bottom lip of the separator plate in place.

6. Clutch Linkage

Next I removed the clutch linkage. It was held on by a cotter pin and could then be pulled out.

7. Speedo cable

The speedometer cable goes to the back of the transmission and is held on with one bolt. Unscrew that and the gear can be pulled out.

8. Back Up Light Switch

My back up light switch wire came through the shifter opening. I separated the connector and left the switch itself connected to the transmission.

9. Disconnect The Transmission From The Bellhousing

It was time to move to the heavier stuff. I loosened the four bolts that hold the transmission to the bellhousing. I left the bottom two loosely in place so they support the transmission for now.

10. Disconnect The Crossmember

I removed the two nuts that hold the transmission to the crossmember. Surprisingly they were not completely rusted and came off quite easily.

11. Loosen The Transmission From The Engine

I wiggled the transmission a bit until it started to separate from the bellhousing. This is where the two bolts that I left there stopped it from coming out completely.

12. Support The Weight Of The Transmission

I places an extra cinder block under the transmission and used my floor jack to take the weight of the transmission off the crossmember.

13. Disconnect The Handbrake Cable

By loosening the handbrake adjuster nut I could remove the lever that was attached to the crossmember.

14. Remove The Crossmember

With the weight off, I hammered out the two bolts that held the crossmember to the frame. It was a pretty tight fit but I just managed to get the crossmember out from between the exhaust pipes. I had not removed them for the swap.

15. Drop The Old Transmission

This is where I got into some trouble. I did not dare to just lie under the transmission and try to lift it out. It would probably just fall on me and cause some injury. Nor did I have a lifter tool to use. The small floor jack didn't lift high enough and the transmission would just probably roll off it.

Finally I just decided to let the transmission drop down. Not straight to the floor though. I placed two cinder blocks under it and placed the old interior carpets on them for padding. Then I pulled the transmission out and carefully let it come down on the carpet. Next I added some steps and more carpets and gradually pulled the transmission down on the floor. It took a long time but finally the heaviest part was out of the car.

16. Take The Thrush Bearing Out

The thrust bearing is just placed in the groove of the clutch fork. It comes out by sliding it to the side.

17. Remove The Bellhousing

The bellhousing is attached to the engine with six bolts. I had to remove the two top ones through the hood and the other from below. Then the bellhousing should just drop down with a few slight taps.

18. Remove The Clutch

Next under the bellhousing is the clutch. It seemed that mine had been replaced at some point and was attached with six allen head bolts. Unscrew them and the clutch drops down.

19. Remove The Flywheel

The six bolts holding the flywheel were pretty tight. Turning them would just rotate the engine. So I screwed in two of the clutch bolts and placed the jack handle between them. It contacted with the exhaust pipe and prevented the engine from turning further. Then apply some force and the bolts come out.

20. Remove The Separator Plate

With the flywheel out, the separator plate under it is not held on with anything and should come out with some wiggling.

Assembly

Next I can start the assembly. I need to take the bellhousing and flywheel to a machine shop first though. To use the T5 adapter plate, two holes must be drilled to the bellhousing and I do not dare to do them by hand. They can sand the flywheel too. I'll have to ask them what they think about its condition first though. Seems that there are some small fractures in it.

T5 Swap Part 1

After the plan to fix the rust damage failed, I decided it was about time to start the bigger projects. And what better was there to start with than the transmission swap. Now I just had a problem of how to get the Mustang high enough to get the transmission out. I've been thinking about it for a while and finally figured that a good (and cheap) way to get the car up was to buy some cinder blocks and lift it on them.

I fetched ten blocks (a few extra just in case) from the nearest hardware store and got to work. I used my small floor jack to lift the front corners up and placed a block under the tires. Then I lifted the whole rear up from the axle housing and added more blocks. Finally I lifted the front again and placed another block on the first one. Now the Mustang was high enough so I placed some wedges on both sides of the tires so the car won't roll of the blocks while I'm under it.

Lifting the car took most of the evening so I had just enough time left to drain the transmission oil and remove the drive shaft. I think I'll watch through the excellent CJ Pony Parts video of the T5 swap once more before continuing.

Last Road Trip

I visited Tampere with the Mustang last weekend. It was probably the last longer drive of this year. The plan was to weld the holes in the floors so I could install a new interior during winter. Me and my friend drove to a garage and started grinding the rust off. Unfortunately quite soon it became clear that with the rust gone, there wasn't much floor left in the passenger side front footwell.

It didn't make any sense to start patching the floor so we decided to leave it and just fix a few smaller holes. I'll have to get a new floor panel before we can complete the welding. Unfortunately that means it won't be done until next spring. Oh well, at least we managed to get rid of the rust elsewhere and spray some rust proofing on the footwells.

Winter Is Coming

Temperatures have been dropping really fast in Finland for the past week. Winter is coming, as Ned Stark would say. So it was time to start the project. I needed to paint the floors and it had to be done while it was still warm so that would be the first job.

The interior would have to come out so I unbolted the seats and put them in storage. Next were the seat belts and kick panels. Then I could remove the carpets and see the actual floors. It was not a pretty sight. Both front foot wells were covered in rust. Rear floors were a bit better but the paint was bubbling there too.

It seemed that the driver side front floor had been fixed at some point. Some parts of the floor had been cut and replaced with straight sheet metal. Other flooring might actually be original for the car. Unfortunately the rust proofing had been done pretty poorly. A really thin layer of paint had been sprayed on the floor and it just was not enough to protect it.

I cleaned most of the dirt and rust away with a wire brush and then vacuumed the interior. That's when I found the holes. Passenger side foot well was the worst. The front corner had a bunch of small holes and there were a few others elsewhere. I guess it could be much worse for such an old car but I still need to fix them before putting the new interior in.

Some not-so-professional fixes in the driver floor

Bunch of holes in passenger side floor

Some surface rust in driver side rear floor

And more of the same on passenger side

Borg Warner T5

Well, won't you look what the cat dragged in.

Or rather, I ordered from Trade Parts and fetched from Tuusula when the parts arrived. It seems that I'll have to actually go through the T5 swap during winter.

I searched for a T5 transmission for some time and called many different possible dealers. I found a few used ones but only Trade Parts had a rebuild unit in stock. They also had some used transmissions but the price difference was not that big so I decided to get the rebuild T5. At least that way I would have some warranty.

Buying the transmission from them was convenient because they had all the other necessary parts also in stock: a new clutch, adapter plate and cross member. I thought that the conversion kit also includes the T5 yoke, but it didn't, so I'll have to get one before starting. Then it was time to find out what my tranny was made of.

The ID tag reads: E6ZR-7003-FB REP-ATI, 13-52-169 101845 H2173. The important bit is the 13-52-169 so I checked a decoder page and found out these:

• Make: Ford / World Class
• Year: 1986-1989
• Model: Mustang/Capri
• Engine: 5.0
• Max torque (lb/ft): 265
• Gear ratios: 3.35 / 1.93 / 1.29 / 1.00 / 0.68

Should fit pretty well behind my 289 V8. I'm not absolutely sure about the 3.35 first gear ratio and my 3.00:1 rear end.  Some web pages say that it might create an almost useless first gear. Well, we'll see when the transmission has been installed.

New Parts And Brake Pads

I received a call from another Mustang hobbyist today. He had a new rear valance panel for sale that had holes for reverse lights and GT style exhausts. The price was right so I drove by to buy it. He also had a pair of trim ring moldings for the exhaust and couple of used back up lights. I bought all of them too.

The trip was about 100 km (62 miles) and the Mustang worked great during the drive. The hesitation when accelerating was now gone but another strange problem raised its ugly head. The car started fine when cold but not when hot. I had to give it some gas and turn the key for a while before the engine started running. Perhaps this is because I tuned the choke. It had been screwed completely open and I closed it up to help with cold starts. The new radiator cap also seemed to stop the coolant overflow after long drives.

When I got home I decided to replace the brake pads. And it was about time. One of the old ones had wore down to the rivets and the other three were not much better. I pushed the pistons back in the calipers and installed the new pads. And oh boy, they made a huge difference! Now I could lock up the wheels easily and the Mustang stopped much better. I had been planning on upgrading to power brakes but now I see that they are not really necessary.