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1970 Torino And Fairlane Builds

Well I went to bed last night and couldn’t stop thinking over the problem and options, because that rather than sleeping is what bed is for, right? The big issue is money and time. I can’t keep throwing money at it and I’m out of time to reinvent the wheel. There’s a mountain of work that needs done yet and I can’t afford to get hung up here. So I decided then that cutting the pedal it is. I robbed the pedal clutch lever off the 67 f100 today and ran it through the motions on the left side of the pedal assembly and was happy with the motion and clearance. The cable mount/retainer bracket shouldn’t interfere with the brake and gas pedals and it looks like I’ll easily have the 1.4” off throw I need to get full clutch cycle.
So I pulled the assembly out again and cut the double d. Then cut the threaded section from another old f100 assembly I had and welded it on. The bench mock up looks good. The cable bolt will clear the pedal bracket and I’ll be able to use a safety pin on the castle nut.
Tomorrow and Thursday I’ll start getting everything back together.
Another issue was the cable modern driveline sent. It appears to be wrong. I specifically ordered this cable because it routes the cable in from behind for a reverse pull, getting the cable away from the header tubes. The one they sent is a traditional pull from the front. I’ll bug them tomorrow and see if they can send the correct cable. But I need that cable so I can get the headers mounted and move along with everything else that needs done.

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Well not much to report. Chatted with dudes at Modern Driveline. The new correct cable is on the way. I painted the whole pedal assembly and reinstalled it today. And got the brake booster studs reinstalled. Everything seems to be jiving. I also had a chat with guy from Modern, offering a solution for the 70-71 Torino. But he was clear. They’d already put the development into hydraulic and nobody is interested cable.
 
The modern driveline experience has been a frustrating one. Twice I talked to guys there. Both times saying they’d ship the correct cable that day. Both times they did not. I talked to them twice yesterday. I finally raised hell. Ultimately I had to pay for the correct cable before they’d ship it, which made zero sense to me. The did pay for overnight shipping so it’ll be here today. But I’m struggling to find the logic of charging the customer to right The sellers mistake. I’ll get refunded when they get the incorrect cable back. Anyway, enough ranting. Today I finally get to see if this cable thing is going to fly.
 
Haha that didn’t Go well. The cable fitting that is. UPS figured the best route to Wa state from Idaho was via Kentucky. And since they didn’t deliver on Saturday, I’m out of luck until Monday-the same day it would have been here with standard shipping, haha.
Anyway we’re moving ahead again elsewhere. I did some barn organizing and got the car back on jack stands and spent a bunch of time measuring the f100 cable and mocking up under the car using the wrong cable. It sure looks like my cable setup is going to work great. But man I’d love to know for sure sooner than later.
This morning the boy and I got after the rear suspension. All the Calvert racing stuff is here so removed the old sagged rear springs and got the Calvert monoleafs and Caltrack bars on the driver side. I’ll do the other side after lunch. Also the new 3/8” stainless fuel line arrived. I made the old line work but it was rough and only 5/16”. The factory cobra jet Torinos were the only ones available with 3/8” line from the sending unit on.IMG_7791.jpegIMG_7792.jpeg
 
Both sides are complete. Still need to set the caltracs up properly but they’re in and roughed in.
I put a tire on and checked and dang if it doesn’t appear it’ll be the same exact height at before. But if it’s firmer I’m not mad at that.
Then did some wrestling with the fuel line. It’s in and pretty nice. The old stuff was rotted off at a few of the tips. Not great for a driver. Terrible for a rig you intend to drag and drive. And the stainless is nice line!

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Today I’m working on changing the 9” center section. This is nothing fancy. Neither case is nodular or even a WAR case. But the open 3.00 gears are coming out and 3.73 trac lock is going in. Later on when I upgrade the f100 to a good case and 35 spline, I’ll put the 31 spline trutrac setup in the Torino.
I’m working on changing the pinion yoke from a stock style 1330 to a Strange chromoly I believe 1350. It’s been a bit of the debacle. The new yoke requires spacers to tighten it all the way up. Well in messing with it yesterday I messed up the new seal. Then the old center section almost required lifting the car from the pinion to break the seal. And naturally, barely an ounce of gear oil hit the drain pan. So it’s dripping now. The kitty liter is soaking up and I’m headed to the store for a seal.
Pictures to come.
 
Today was damn productive. I made a firewall cable retainer bracket from a simple piece of angle iron. Roughed up the position, then set it up so a single bolt holds it and the steering column firewall flange holds it square. I’m not happy at all with the cable angle at the pedal end but it’ll get me through the summer. I have a thought in mind for how to use the stock fox body cable through another’s part of the floor that’ll offer better support. But that’s for another day.
After taking that all apart after establishing the cable release “ should work”, I painted the bracket and put it all back together. I fished the new Speedo cable through the floor hole along with the clutch cable. The dash structure is back together and the wires wired again.
The boy helped me hold the headers in place from below while I got the bolts in from above. The rest came together pretty quickly. The alternator, fan, and radiator is in. I’m running the stock style flex fan because it’s great in this shroud. The starter is in along with all new battery/starter cables.
And got some radiator hoses mocked up that’ll work nicely.
Then I was just messing around and found the brand new a few years ago throttle cable frayed badly in a very short amount of time. So I get to enter that rabbit hole again. Yay!!!
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Made some solid progress over the weekend. I’m starting to feel the pressure though.
Did some measuring and angle checking at the trans and diff. I determined I need a 6 degree shim kit. Which is annoying. The leaf pack gets undone for that to replace the centering pin with a longer one. But at least I know. And I’m to get the driveline ordered. I also determined I have space to bump up to a 3.5” or 4” diameter driveline.
Otherwise it was a ton of just fiddling. The starter is in and wired. The fuel system is mounted and plumbed, save 1 fitting for the regulator. I also mounted the electric Holley blue pump at the fuel tank and plumbed it. I’ll need to wire up a switch and relay tomorrow.
Otherwise the cooling statement is all plumbed. With new hoses. The alternator is mounted and wired with a new belt.
I’d also partially dropped the trans to enlarge the shifter hole by about 1/2” to allow movement. The new fancy boot will be here shortly. Now that’s all bolted back together. Once I know I don’t have to shim the trans, I’ll tie the exhaust back together.
I did briefly fire it up yesterday. Like for a second. No shaft or trans fluid though means I gotta hold off for a bit on actually running it and setting the timing.
This engine is looking pretty rad in this engine bay. It fills it nicely.
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bigjohn said:
Made some solid progress over the weekend. I’m starting to feel the pressure though.
Did some measuring and angle checking at the trans and diff. I determined I need a 6 degree shim kit. Which is annoying. The leaf pack gets undone for that to replace the centering pin with a longer one. But at least I know. And I’m to get the driveline ordered. I also determined I have space to bump up to a 3.5” or 4” diameter driveline.
Otherwise it was a ton of just fiddling. The starter is in and wired. The fuel system is mounted and plumbed, save 1 fitting for the regulator. I also mounted the electric Holley blue pump at the fuel tank and plumbed it. I’ll need to wire up a switch and relay tomorrow.
Otherwise the cooling statement is all plumbed. With new hoses. The alternator is mounted and wired with a new belt.
I’d also partially dropped the trans to enlarge the shifter hole by about 1/2” to allow movement. The new fancy boot will be here shortly. Now that’s all bolted back together. Once I know I don’t have to shim the trans, I’ll tie the exhaust back together.
I did briefly fire it up yesterday. Like for a second. No shaft or trans fluid though means I gotta hold off for a bit on actually running it and setting the timing.
This engine is looking pretty rad in this engine bay. It fills it nicely.
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Good progress! 30 years later it still amazes me how long the "little" things take.
 
The last few days have been slow in productivity. The plug wires are changed to gray moroso wires. I got the 6 degree wedges and longer pins installed. I primed/leak checked the fuel system and fixed one major leak. Once primed it runs fine at about 4.5psi fuel pressure in mechanical only without a load. Good enough.
I replaced an overstretched u bolt and the one next to it. And the new rear axle bearings came in so got the old ones cut off and pressed the new ones in.
And with the pinion angle roughed in I got the driveline ordered from my local shop.
 
Made it back from CA on Saturday so Sunday I spent some time getting stuff ready to test drive. The electric fuel pump and relay is wired and done. The coolant catch can is mounted. On Monday I picked up the driveline, slammed it in and took the first test drive. Some good, some bad. The clutch is good and the experience is fun. The bad was vibration I didn’t like at all. At that point I took a break to get the barn cleaned up some. What I found was dumb. Ford uses their own version of a 1330 u joint on the axle yoke. I’ve just changed the caps to the Ford units in the past but that’s janky. So I payed up to ship another 1330 yoke. I’ll replace the seal and crush sleeve again while I’m in there.

I should note the day before vacation I got the header collectors welded to the existing exhaust. It’s really quiet and tame sounding. Too quiet, but will do for now.
 
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The drive shaft hoop showed up and it was the job I’m least interested in doing so i dove into that. I started with driving to town for grade 8 standard hardware to replace the metric crap. Then spent a ton of time mocking, guessing and trimming. I’m not very proud of the product but it’ll certainly work and it’s another item crossed off the list.
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Grr. The beatings continue.
I’ve been battling the rear center section. Had to pay up to have a Yukon yoke shipped fast to try to get this car together and test driven. This yoke takes a standard 1330 joint. The problem, while it fits perfect, I can’t get preload on the pinion. No matter how many shims I add.
Do the new plan was to install the 9” section that came out of the f100 a few years ago. 3.50 gears, and completely worn out equalock. Well I was chatting/venting with father on law Jeff last night. He went a different direction with his nasty Cleveland powered 70.5 Falcon. So I’m headed over in a minute to pick up a 31 spline I believe nodular case, 4.10 geared tracloc center section and matching Torino shafts that were destined for his Falcon (until he bought 5.00 geared setup from Cottonwood Kyle).
 
Well this phase is finally done.
I ran over to Jeff’s and picked the stuff up. Shockingly the old center section came out without a mess. I know, I wouldn’t have believed it either if there weren’t photographic evidence.
Once the old section was removed and the housing cleaned and prepped, the new one went in…. To find out the new 31 spline axles wouldn’t go in. It turns out the carrier is 28 spline. The good news is the the yoke swap went great, got the pinion properly preloaded without any wobbling, and I just reinstalled my old 28 spline axles.
After buttoning all that up and reinstalling the drive shaft, securing the clutch and speedo cable, I finally did a fairly proper test drive, which went well. The new tracloc is tight as hell. Like a spool. It’ll loosen up after awhile so that is fine. It goes through the gears stupid fast now with the 4.10 gears. The country road section of my drive home is now 5th gear at 45mph.
After the drive it was more little stuff. Mounting the hood by myself was fun. Pulled the “headlight on” warning bulb that would flicker on when driving regardless of headlight switch position.
Tomorrow the tach with shift light comes in. Once I get that mounted and wired I’ll reinstall the top dash.
Also I finally got a look at the stance, which is really great. The rear is about 1.5-2” taller than before IMG_7881.jpegIMG_7880.jpegIMG_7879.jpegIMG_7878.jpeg
 
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Hey, she made it to work and back today! Some good, some bad news.
The 3.27 1st gear, 4.10 diff and 26” tires mean leaving from a stop is similar to that of a granny 1st pickup, haha. But running 70 in 5th gear is around 2600 rpm’s and with this exhaust (2.5 full length and thrust turbo mufflers) is nearly silent.
The bad: the alternator belt flipped over. I had to get it really tight to simmer the squealing, which cocked the alternator slightly. I have a good gates belt on the way. And the fuel pump started leaking, oil? Ya. That’s enough of me buying Carter’s. I have a Delphi on the way.
All in all I’m happy with it. It boogies. It rides really nice. And the front rattle is finally gone!
Tonight I spent some time getting the new tachometer with shift light mounted and wired. Then I finally got to reinstall the upper dash.
I have another wheel bearing and lock ring on the way also. I’ll need to find another shaft that’s the correct length around here to press the bearing on and swap it in.
Also we finally found a great deal on some 15” wheels. Anna’s going to pick them up tomorrow.
Pictures tomorrow!
 
bigjohn said:
Hey, she made it to work and back today! Some good, some bad news.
The 3.27 1st gear, 4.10 diff and 26” tires mean leaving from a stop is similar to that of a granny 1st pickup, haha. But running 70 in 5th gear is around 2600 rpm’s and with this exhaust (2.5 full length and thrust turbo mufflers) is nearly silent.
The bad: the alternator belt flipped over. I had to get it really tight to simmer the squealing, which cocked the alternator slightly. I have a good gates belt on the way. And the fuel pump started leaking, oil? Ya. That’s enough of me buying Carter’s. I have a Delphi on the way.
All in all I’m happy with it. It boogies. It rides really nice. And the front rattle is finally gone!
Tonight I spent some time getting the new tachometer with shift light mounted and wired. Then I finally got to reinstall the upper dash.
I have another wheel bearing and lock ring on the way also. I’ll need to find another shaft that’s the correct length around here to press the bearing on and swap it in.
Also we finally found a great deal on some 15” wheels. Anna’s going to pick them up tomorrow.
Pictures tomorrow!
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Sweet!
My TKX in the AMX is the 3.27 1st gear unit but currently paired with a 3.15 rear end gear.
There is a 3.55 gear set on the shelf that will get installed when the 9" ford rear goes in.
I'm hoping it will really dig hard off the line, but still be a usable 1st gear... not like driving our jeeps with a granny 1st gear.
 
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