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August 13th, 2022 weekend:. Got the transmission disconnected from the 3.7L. WOW! I have been working on cars since 1983 when I was 13. There was 11 bolts securing the transmission and engine together JUST in the bellhousing. We just slid it out the bottom and sadly the cherry picker my bother had didn't have the reach necessary to hook to the motor. Luckily my neighbor wasn't using his so the next day out goes the 3.7L.
Anyone need an operational V6 Mustang drivetrain, LOL
Weekend of August 19th, 2022: I remove everything connected to the K-member, Steering linkage and the lower control arms and then dropped the factory K-member. I then proceeded to put the AJE crossmember in the car. Everything was going well and I had all the bolts and nuts in loose. Apparently when these are welded there is some draw and the passenger side needed some tweaking with a pull bar to get it over about 1/2" or so while I was prying on it I reached to get the Impact to get it in to snug it and grabbed the Milwalke 1/2" and didnt realize it was on Defcon 9 (used the 3/8" for the others but it was out of reach) and forgetting it was on the highest setting, broke the bolt. Ending the evening... I called a buddy to see if I could borrow his extraction tools to remove it (he does a LOT of 6.0L Ford F250 head fixes removing the cab) and he said "don't touch it I will be there tomorrow". While my bother and I was putting the 4L80E in his truck he came by and had it out in about 20-30 minutes.
Week of August 22, 2022: I called the local Ford dealership and ordered a new bolt, and picked it up that week. My 2 Current Performance DBW wiring sets came in along with their Holley AC trigger kit. I also talked to Casey and RaceCarServices and ordered his EPAS Kit.
Week of August 29, 2022: I got the AJE crossmember in. I looked all over the internet and even talked to the Dealership with no luck but found a reference to 85lb/ft for the bolts so I torqued them accordingly. If anyone has different information let me know. AJE instructions didn't have this nor did it have instructions on what bolts go where. I ended up using the EPAS and main LCA bolts from the Factory Crossmember. The EPAS has a 3rd bolt but the factory 3 bolt won't go in the AJE opening and there is not bolt short enough or big enough. I may just open this up on the AJE and go find a nut since the factory nut is welded to the K-member.
The last 2 pictures show the 3rd hole and the corresponding bracket on the AJE. The only bolts I have left from AJE are in the motor mount pics. And I am going to end up cutting the back part of those off...
Weekend of September 3, 2022: I pulled the Truck intake off pulled the Truck pan. The LS6 intake is just sitting there for my daughters reference on the difference. I have a 2010-up Camaro oil pan with baffles but I planned to use it on my 1989 Blazer K5, so I ordered a 1998-2002 F-body pan kit with dip stick tube to put in its place. Not sure what is going to show up this coming week, but Sept 9-11 I will be a LS Fest.
Sept 5, 2022: Things I was thinking about... Still need to figure out if I can use the factory shifter and need to figure out if I can modify the factory trans crossmember, make a new one or if someone makes one that will work. I have a T56 but I can't get my daughter to let me put a manual in the car now.
Also need to figure out the Heater Core hoses to the LS, If it is possible to mount the factory AC to the LS or if I need to swap, and if there is an adapter to go from the Ford Trans fittings to AN, or a way to run new lines for the trans.
Found this link on the internet for the S197 car information : https://iihs.net/fsm/ and it confirmed the 85lb/ft for the K-member and I will be comparing the info there to the GM Truck pedal and will post my findings. Worse case is I just put the GM pedal in the car.
Weekend of September 9, 2022:After 9 years of driving my 1987 Truck to LS Fest without issue I had two that had to be sorted out, and one that had to have a solution so I could get home. 1) The fan temp probe for the fans when out driving into the venue and the truck overheated.. Like 240 degrees. we hardwired it to get it home, 2) what I thought was a turbo scavenge pump problem (after replacing at midnight in Beech Bend entrance, it was found to be a shorted relay. I Spent all day trying to find a relay that would work so I could drive home. We made home no issue but had to waiting on the new fan kit.
Back to the Mustang Weekend of September 16, 2022: Scrounging around looking at the old K-member I found that the lower control arm bolts had a nut on them that would perfectly fit the 3rd bolt for the power steering mount. I had to open up the hole in the AJE crossmember and only the bottom is bolted but it now has a bolt in it now (nut not pictured but it is in there)
In addition to this I got the EPAS wiring harness from Casey at Racecar Services to solve the Electric power steering issues.
Week of September 26, 2022: The new 98-02 F-Body oil pan came in from Pace. It pretty much had everything pan, dipstick, tube, bolts windage tray, pickup tube, and the pan. This definitely will help with ground clearance issues. We got the engine in the air and dropped the truck pan and then installed the new F-body pan. I also cut down the AJE engine mounts where the ears are for mounting to a SBC. Not shown but I hit them with some rattle can black and bolted them back to the motor.
This is where things get interesting... The following night I planned to reinstall the valve train (rockers and pushrods) to check for pushrod length an when rotating the motor over, it would ONLY move 90 degrees. Since it was late I decided to call it a night and pull the pan the next day. The evening we pulled the pan to see if we left something out of place that would keep it from turning over. We ended up pulling everything oil pan related off. Still wouldn't turn. The next evening we pulled the timing cover, with no solution and since it wasn't on an engine stand was proved to be fruitless to determine what the problem was we called it an evening. Since I work in IT and my oncall rotation would tie me up with a project this was delayed for the next weekend.
Friday September 30, 2022: We have been on the hunt for new wheels/tires for this as the base wheels on this were only 7" wide. So I located a set of what I now know as PP1 Takeoff during the day that my daughter approved of so I headed out to pick them up. So now she has some 19" wheels
Weekend of October 1, 2022: Bound to determine the issue I played fruit basket turnover in my cramped 2 car garage to remove an engine from a stand and put this one on it so we could see what actually was going on. We spent a good time discovering this as I wanted my daughter to understand the logic around what was going on. After some evaluation we concluded that the number 2 cylinder (front left looking into the engine bay) was the culprit as it wasn't making it past the same point.
So we pulled the passenger side head to see what the issue was. Keeping is mind this was a pullout motor, that I have had for 11 years that has always been stored inside a conditioned garage... When we got the head off this is what I discovered. Moisture in the cylinder caused some surface rust to appear and a stack of crud was piled above the piston. I sprayed some Liquid Wrench in and scuffed it with a Scotchbrite pad and much of it came off. (see Third picture) We were able to turn the motor over but it still had rust in it.
So I filled it up to the edge in vinegar and let it soak for 12 hours. The last pictures shows the Vinegar in the hole.. The last two picture are after I went down and checked on it 1 hour later.
Sunday October 2, 2022: After we got back from Church we went to investigate the progress/status. Needless to say I was impressed. We rolled the motor up so the piston is level and I filled it to the top. Based on the current results I plan to let it sit and recheck. Optimistic of the outcome, I ordered a new head gasket, and bolts when should be here this week and I plan to recheck and possibly run a hone through it and reseal it back up.
Monday October 3, 2022: I talked to Current Perfomance again about the pedals and apparently got the right person via email as they said they had someone local using the 2011 Pedal on the Terminator X running an LS so I asked if they could send the pinouts for the harness I bought and the Mustang. It appears all I need is swap pins 2 and 5 , along with pins 4 and 6. Which will make this process much easier.
Week of October 9, 2022: Head gasket showed up so that weekend I ran a plate hone through the cylinder and reinstalled the head. We flipped it over and installed the 1998--02 GM F-body oil pan and pickup. After verifying the pushrod length was good we sealed it up ready for the install.
October 23, 2022: Liz and I got the motor installed in the Mustang into the AJE cradle. I have to say it went in pretty smoothly. Then we attempted to install the 4L60E. I knew the 4L80e required some tunnel "massaging" and since the 4L60E was physically similar I figured I would need to make room for it but... As of right now it won't fit. I know several Mustang owners swapped over to 4L80E's but no idea what all it took to get it in there. Anyway we got stopped at the partial install as the next day I had a week of training that was going to pause progress for a week, so the trans was left just sitting on jack stands.
I started looking for a shorter Selector shaft since this one was way too long. Searched all over the internet for a 4L80E/4l60E install in a S197 and found nothing.
Weekend on Nov 12th: The shorter selector shaft showed up so I dropped the pan and installed and sealed it back up. It is MUCH Shorter... but, it doesn't really matter.
Weekend on Nov 23, 2022: As stated above it was shorter, but the issues has nothing to do with clearance on the drivers side, it is pretty much the passenger side. So broke out the sledgehammer, ballpeen hammer and Air Hammer and went to town. It got late but we ended up just setting it down on a 2x6 scrap above the factory crossmember to repeat the hammering later.
Weekend on Dec 3, 2022: Round 2 with the hammer arsenal. Ended up painting the area to figure out where all everything is hitting. As shown with the 4L60E it is right at the transcrossmember brace. At this point it still needs to move over another 3/8" before I am happy. Note the drivers side which I can put my hand between the tunnel. The last picture shows how tight it is.
The Transmission is NOT straight centered at this point. I ordered a digital angle gauge so I can set the engine/trans as the same angle as the pinion, which should get me past that area and I plan to just pound some clearance in. At this point (on this day) I am able to removed and install the trans (with 4 bolts no converter bolts) in about 20 minutes, so I am confident if I can get it above that reinforcement plate I will be golden if/when I will need to remove it.
BTW while we were setting the engine/trans, I was checking to see if some Speed Engineering headers would fit the wrong way (towards the back). The didnt. BUT they do fix the right way forward facing so if she does well in this my spare turbos will have a perfect spot for both sides.
In addition I found the following information:
Heater lines: ford and gm flip the line sizes on the in and out of the hearer core, so it is not as simple as hooking the 5/8 line to the 5/8 fitting on the water pump.
The 5/8 out of the core will go in to the 3/4 on the LS pump.
The radiator is the ford racing for the stock 4.6 that was in the car . The lower factory hose will need to have the t removed and it should hook right up.
Factory radiator is upper passenger side lower driver. The lower hose an oem 08 4.6 should fit
So I ordered a LS1 Water pump and spacers and a straight Tstat housing.
Last edited by Captkaos; Jan 25, 2023 at 01:10 AM.
Weekend on Dec 10, 2022: Round 3 with the Trans mount didn't go as well as I had planned trying to squeeze 3/8" out. Whaling on it basically popped a number of spot welds, so I went with it and just drilled all of them out and removed them. Probably should have done this from the start but oh well. I had to get this done before my week of oncall started. Hopefully while I am off I can make some good progress, make some room and then cut/section the mount and spot weld it back in place.
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