Piotr's 359ci Windsor Build

[Mercmarquis]

C4 is going in tomorrow. I just got done pulling the old AOD out for the last time. I need an extra set of hands otherwise I would have kept going. Throwing in the C4 might be a challege on its own because of the narrow deep pan. I'm anticipating it to be unstable on my floor jack. I dont have a tranny jack unfortunetly.

Letting the oil dry do its thing on my driveway and I should be prepared to rock tomorrow. Wish me luck.

[DuceAnAHalf]

did you get new shorter bolts for the C4 or washers to take up the extra legnth?

also, if your converter uses aftermarket 7/16" bolts, drill out your flexplate. i didnt do this and it made it much more difficult than it should have been

[Mercmarquis]

I used washers cause the hardware store didnt have the length of bolt I needed with a near full thread. The converter bolted in fine. Its nice having the converter tapped and using bolts instead of the studs and nuts. I had to throw a ground strap on the starter since the bell is painted all over and doesnt connect with bare metal.

Its in and running on stands right now. I'm hooking up the shifter and T brake and life should be good. Just need to make a seat bracket.

[Mercmarquis]

burning rubber smells ooo so good today

[gadget73]

. The converter bolted in fine. Its nice having the converter tapped and using bolts instead of the studs and nuts. I.

Thats one thing I like about GM transmissions over Fords, no stupid converter studs.

Happy with the results I take it?

[Grand Marquis GT]

How's it perform??

[Mercmarquis]

Havent really driven it. Registration is out of date. Took it up the street and did a burnout. Thats about it. It made me happy as all hell. I also used a 5 gallon bucket as a seat lol.

[Mercmarquis]

Waiting to pick up a friend's welder to make a seat bracket and do the exhaust. That is all it needs for me to run it. I been toying with it around the house and traction is far worse of a problem than I thought it could be. If I just so even as blip the throttle it will send the stock 225/70's boiling on thier way to hell. No holding brakes ect...I'm not saying its not fun but I didnt expect it to do that. I'm more impressed than anything.

Also on do they make a 9/16 to 7/16 thread reducer bushing? I ask cause I need one for my alt bracket. The threads on the head are 9/16 and my alt takes a 7/16 bolt? What do I do besides jb weld it? Cause I already tried that lol.

[gadget73]

There are reducing plugs just for this. Ford sells them, pic with the part number here:

http://www.grandmarq.net/vb/showpost.php?p=363883&postcount=92

[Mercmarquis]

Glorious! thank you Ed and Thain!

[DuceAnAHalf]

my lower alternator bolt has never threaded into the head. i always manage to bolt the head on backwards and not notice till i install the alternator. i just have the long bolt put in there, ive never had a problem with the bolt backing out

[Mercmarquis]

Im sure if I had the stock steel alt bracket it would be no problem but I have that march one and the other mount is a threaded rod with hiem joints. It hasnt backed out yet but I dont want it to happen down the road. I'll pick up a bushing from ford some time lol.

[Mercmarquis]

Still waiting on the state to renew my collector car registration so I can drive the SOB. I'm calling the ford stealership to pickup that bushing for the alt. It backed out the last time I moved the car.

So now that I have nothing going on I tore apart my red truck and will toss on my new body panels on it and paint it. Its getting red tractor paint and should look nice when done.

[Mercmarquis]

That damn bushing insert was $20 bucks lol. Hot Damn! Im just happy with the peace of mind in knowing it will be ok. Should be here tuesday or wednesday. Anyway the bolt backed out again and I lost my spacers down the road somewhere. I found a 1/2 drive 5/8 impact socket works rather nice as a spacer tho.

I found im not the best painter. With me being a complete newb at it and my pop not having done it in 20 years doesnt help. So the hood on my rig got covered in fish eye from dust blowing up in the garage. The one fender got too much paint and has some sags but it will wetsand out. It doesnt really bother me cause the truck wont be perfect till I have a shop of my own to restore it in. It just sucks to see it looking good and then picking up the fender to move it and having the paint sag. We are getting it down tho. We were just running some expiriments before lol.

[Mercmarquis]

Well I'm here at Fooseball camp again. The state hasnt sent the registration back yet. But the security guard here has a buddy who wrecked his torino and will sell me a set of 10.5in Hoosiers with 3 passes on them and some American racing "rocket" wheels. Never heard of the wheels but they are supposedly light and only 175 bucks for the whole deal. Im not complaining at all lol. but I hope the backspacing will work. If not the slicks alone are still a deal.


Rear end will need significant attention soon. I forsee broken u joints and a scattered 8.8 in the near future. My gears suck too. 3.27's

14 weeks of fooseball, wahoo! at least I can drive the car tho!