Penguin mods a pretty Pony! or "The S197 Blues"

Update time...

Last week I had some time to install the adjustable Upper Control Arm. This was the last stock piece on the rear axle. In the following pictures you can see how the OEM bushing on this arm was not broken but definitely tired.



This adjustable arm lets me control pinion angle by lengthening or shortening the length from the chassis to the top of the diff. This is important because a bad pinion angle can cause severe wear to the driveshaft itself, U-joints, and pinion bearing inside the diff. Here is an old but great video that illustrates why driveshaft angles are important.



Install took me about 3 1/2 hours. It took me a bit longer than it should have because I had to drop the gas tank to get the UCA mounting snout out. I had to bend a lip of the gas tank to get some clearance for the control arm mount, no big deal. The gas tank was a bitch to get back up because of all the EVAP and E-brake lines snaked around it. Every time I would lift it, something would move and get snagged. The driveshaft has a center bearing enclosed in a bushing, it holds the driveshaft and creates the elbow for the "2 piece" design. I found the bushing was tilted from factory assembly, probably to lend movement for the panhard. I straightened that out, hopefully reducing any kind of issue with the support bearing now that the watts link supports the axle centered. Here are the final pictures...



I didn't have time to adjust it, so I did that a couple of days later. The back seat shook a bit for those 2 days. When I had time to measure and adjust, it was obvious that it was off due to the axle breather bleeding out some of the gear oil.



I left it with the diff angle at -2.5* ...or... 2.5* below what the transmission flange measured at. I also installed the transmission scoop. It replaced a stock brace that had tiny bolts mounted into huge holes on the subframe. I picked up some M12 bolts to eliminate the slop. I measured the transmission outer casing with my IR therm around 151-162* between city and highway driving prior to the install. Will measure it soon to see what the difference is.



I took a look at the brakes to see WTF is causing that weird shake. I opened up the shims in the front calipers thinking that may have caused binding, and shaved some of the shoulders on the pad backing plates.



I measured the pads and they were all within a 10th or 100th of each other so wear was even. No sign of extreme heat on the pads either. I checked the rotors for warping with a square of aluminum tubing I had and some digital calipers. No warping of the rotors either. So I took them off and found some severe pad imprinting.



I used my most aggressive wire wheel and went to town on the rotors to try to get the material off. No luck, the steering wheel still shook. I've been doing brake jobs on cars for 18 years since I was a stupid teenager just learning how to wrench. I've done brakes on every car that I've ever owned and on several of my friends and families cars, and I have never had pad imprinting like this. I spent this week reading how-to's on mustang sites, and watching videos JUST IN CASE I missed something obvious on this specific application. Reading and watching some of these instructions were painful to say the least. So far all I've learned is that the mustang community is full of even more idiots than I originally thought.

All I can conclude is that the Stop Tech pads I put on were too aggressive for these shitty Autozone rotors. I made the decision to buy these rotors because at the time solid face Centric's and Brembo's were backordered on every site I looked at. I didn't want to wait, given how bad the rear brakes were, so I made the mistake of getting rotors at Autozone. Even if I bring them in and convince the clowns behind the counter that its a warranty, I'm just going to get the same shit quality rotor. So I decided to cut my losses and ordered Centric rotors for all 4 corners and ordered new shims too. Should be in by next weekend.

That's all for now.

 

Quick and Short update

So a couple of weeks ago I had a chance to swap in the Centric rotors and shims. I took my time and treated all the brake components like a newborn baby. The centric rotors were so much nicer in that they had deeper and cleaner cross cutting (not sure if that's the proper term) on the rotor face than the autozone rotors did initially. The front ones were also ever so slightly thicker, not by much maybe 2mm. Enough where I had to compress the front caliper pistons a bit to get the new rotors on. The rears went on fine.



The above pictures are of the aftermarket shims. Details Details Details... You can see the new ones from Centric have a beefier spring clip on them and right out of the box were not all bent to shit like the previous set I had on. The other shims (long story short) also came from Autozone. Unfortunately the StopTech pads provided replacement shims for the rear but not the front. I considered ordering OEM, since they had some kind of powdercoat on them to keep the pads moving easy in the event of the brake grease wearing off. (I didn't reuse them originally because the coating was worn and completely chipping off.) Anyway new OEM would have been 5 times more expensive and I would've had to order them from 2 different sources.

Once everything was done and all the Autozone crap was off the car, I took it on a short neighborhood drive and then on the highway to bed the pads in. Again driving the car as though a brand new baby was riding in it. Made a long 120 mile run before I parked it. Told the wife not to even think about using the parking brake for the first week. Overkill? Absolutely. But I did not want to take the chance of pad imprinting again and have to do the brakes on this car for a third time this year.

To date the brakes have about 500 miles on them and stop incredibly smooth. +1 for Centric

On a more comical note, I had some brake cleaner land on a small part of my jeans as I was finishing up. I only realized it as I felt the cool sensation on my skin, followed by a slight sting. By the time I finished and got washed up, my leg had a blister the size of a large grape. Lesson learned, if you get brake fluid on your clothes, rinse it real quick with some water. Otherwise this can happen to you too.



Next post might not be for a while, it will be when I throw on the GT500 springs and front control arms. I have some more pressing issues to deal with on my GenPu first.

 

Update time

Nothing major to write about for the mustang. Brakes, Watts Link, and Bilsteins are holding up great! Had 2 oil changes since the last post. We had some knife like road debris puncture one of the rear tires, which turned into a pair because the other side was worn down enough. My tire shop had Michelin A/S3's in stock, so we put those on for now. The fronts are showing a bit of inner shoulder wear like the old ones, so camber plates are in the future. I wanted to get some wider wheels for the mustang, but it'll have to wait a bit as I want to get my moneys worth out of the rear Michelin's.

With all the driving we did during the move, I realized that with the rear of the mustang loaded with crap, it causes the axle to tilt slightly backward. This caused a bit of diff fluid to leak out of the breather hole. This can be easily remedied by adjusting the pinion angle. I will shoot for -3.5* which will tilt the axle a little more forward, so when the axle is loaded it'll be more level and not spit out of the breather. As an extra precaution I picked up an overflow tank, which tucks tightly up in the chassis above the axle. Clearance seemed questionable until you mock it up and see all the room there is. I forgot to snap pics for now, will post up plenty when I install it.

Also I picked up some "military spec" battery terminals. Got these to replace the Auto Store ones that keep loosening randomly and cracking when you retorque them. These things are BEEFY!!!



Amazon Link

They work a lot better for the 2ga cable I used to rewire the mustang main power lines. The terminals themselves are offset and marked, so no slop on the smaller negative battery post. The rubber post covers are soft enough to maneuver them however you need to, so feeding the cables through is a breeze. I will definitely pick up a set of these for the Pu!

List of stuff to put on...
-Axle Overflow Tank
-GT500 Ford Racing Lowering springs
-Poly Sway bar bushings w/adjustable endlinks
-Front Control Arms w/extended ball joints and poly bushings

Afterward I will seal the mustang front end and get some hood vents for it, because guess what? This car has really bad lift too!!! Damn FoMoCo….

So stuff to order in the near future....
-Hood Vents
-Radiator sealing material
-Caster/Camber plates

More updates coming!