My 72 Mach 1 ongoing Project Thread

[iceberg65]

Well after receiving all the AN fittings and fuel line; I found that they sent me line that is too big for the fittings (that came with the kit) It must have just been a packaging error as the size isn't really labeled on the hose. After them assuming that I just didn't know how to assemble teflon AN lines for a few days because it fit on their end they finally said they would send me another 20ft of hose free of charge when I sent them pictures of how it was impossible to get the olive on the teflon without kinking it. I did go with fuel cell bulkhead fitting for the return line, and placed it just above and to the side of the fuel sender opening; and the tube fitting I bought for the factory fuel outlet fit awesome, so I think setting up the existing fuel line as a return line will work great.

Back to the rear end; have everything mocked up now and am preparing to cut the axles and weld on my perches (setting the pinion angle); I have found that I need a conversion bearing for the wider 9" pinion yoke, driveshaft mates up to what I have well though; so not a big deal. For the u bolt/ shock plates; I did have to slot the holes quite a bit to fit the larger u bolts (both bolt size and axle tube width). The holes are now very close to the edge of the metal but will be ok for mockup purposes. For final assembly I think I will just weld some flat bar on with holes for the u bolts to re-enforce whats there for piece of mind. In the future I still want some caltracs which come with new retainer plates, but have other places to spend the money for the time being.

I do still need to get rear brakes for the old big ford housing ends I'm using. I'm leaning towards the "the right stuff ford 9" disc brake conversion for staggered shock applications with park brake"

http://www.jegs.com/i/Right-Stuff/965/ZDCDS05/10002/-1

Has anyone used a kit like this; It looks fairly complete and versatile as far as setting up for different brake offsets and bearing types. Seems like a great value for the price; it's cheaper then getting all new drums even. I would be adding an adjustable proportioning valve as well for them.

 

[Mister 4x4]

That kit looks pretty awesome!  I also found their small bearing kit as well: http://www.jegs.com/i/JEGS-Performance-Products/555/630603/10002/-1

I think I'll be upgrading the brakes on mine soon myself! ::thumb::

 

[iceberg65]

Absolutley, for the cost of it; having all new stuff back there it seems like a good choice; and its a oem (79 Cadillac) caliper, so finding parts wouldn't be too bad. Seems like a great value over sourcing more drums to fit my old style large bearing rear end with a 2.5" offset and the right bolt pattern.

I was looking at the jegs one too; priced the same but comes with SS lines; Awesome! I just want to make sure I get one that specifically states that its good for the ends I have (seem to be the least common ones)

 

[Jeff73Mach1]

I used the Mustang Steve brackets with Cobra rotors, calipers and pads (2004 IIRC) and a wilwood proportioning valve with a Wilwood MC all after using a baer kit that failed miserably. Other than needing hoses, that was the bulk of the kit and I needed some different cables and I used a lokar cable kit and tunnel mounted handle. laying out the cable runs and welding in tabs rather than using the factory mounting points gave me a pretty good set up finally. I let someone else do the original baer install and it was horrible.

 

[iceberg65]

That does sound like an awesome brake setup; around here sourcing the cobra brake parts end up costing quite a bit (I've looked at it for my cougar in the past). I've also been under my car looking at the ebrake cable routing, doesn't seem like it would take too much to change it up some; I do prefer a tunnel mounted ebrake lever; but that would be something to tackle down the road. With the popularity of drifting there are quite a few hydraulic ebrake options coming to the market as well, mine being an automatic I shouldn't need to worry about the ebrake strength too terribly much though as long as it is functional.

Too bad about your experience with the baer setup; I always heard good things about their products.

 

[iceberg65]

Well I went ahead and ordered the right stuff brake kit, along with a few other things, going to be running dual 12" 1550cfm electric fans that I can control off the EZ efi system. And I got new brake hard lines for the rear end as well.

And I picked up the conversion U joint I need for the driveshaft to the larger pinion of the 9" so I'll be able to set my pinion angle and get the car back on it's wheels soon!

 

[iceberg65]

Got in and tacked in my leaf spring pads last night; I set the pinion angle at -4*

Next up is to finish the welding on the leaf spring pads, then I can take it all apart again give it a final cleaning for some paint then do final assembly for the rear end.

Then I'm onto the fuel system for the efi. Do any of you guys that have done efi with a ignition box have pictures of what you went with for mounting locations of the ecu and ignition box? With cleaning up the alternator wiring for the 3g swap I think I'm going to mount a small power distribution fuseblock under the solenoid, then put the ecu near the firewall towards the passenger side, and go for the drivers side shock tower area for the ignition box. I'm also going to have my fuel lines and pressure regulator on that side somewhere so I still kinda have to figure out how everything is going to sit.

Also had one hell of a time getting the plug out of my water pump for the water temp sensor for my gauge to relocate too. Broke off the nub with a square socket, then drilled it out and got my biggest easy out in it off a breaker bar and couldn't break it loose (those easy outs suck for this kind of thing cause they tend to push the threads outward). Ended up drilling it out to just shy of the threads then taking a dremel to make some relief cuts and breaking what was left out. Then spent some time fishing around in there with a magnet to clean it out.

 

[tony-muscle]

Just reading the last few post of tour thread. Tou are working on a lot of projects similar to mine. I did the rear brakes last year and now working in installing the FiTech EFI with new AN6 hoses and fittings.

I actually used that same Right Stuff kit (non drilled rotors). I bought from CJ Pony when they had it discounted. I have a staggered shock setup as well. You dont need the staggered kit. Is a long story, but i first bought the staggered kit but received the non-staggered. Then after calling CJP and the Right Stuff and dealing with them telling me it was the other's fault, they ended up replacing the one caliper for me. Six months later when I go to install it I realize that the non-staggered would have fit perfectly. So then I call the Right Stuff again to change the one caliper back to non-staggered. At that time they told me they had change the casting of the caliper and that they had no more left of the older one like mine. So what I did is purchase a ElDorado caliper in Amazon to fit to the kit. Long story short, i now have a non-staggered caliper setup in my staggered shock car. It fits great and I recommend going this route. There is no interference in my car at all. Otherwise, the driver's side caliper will be located in the front half of the disc which will leave the parking brake cable exiting towards the rear. It will then require more adapting and it will look weird. I also ended up adapting the original parking brake cable and not using the one from the kit. I created my own extension bracket (the one located in the driver's side). You can see in the picture how i adapted it.

I also ended up using a shorter brake hose in the driver's side to fit the original brake tubing.

Driver's side setup. Notice no issues with the shock.



Passenger's side:



Extension union. Used a plate, cut to size, drilled holes, mill between holes and bent. All easily done with a few tools:



Adapting OEM parking brake cable to Cadillac caliper:



Shorter hose on driver's side:



Kit's hose on passenger side:





1971 M-code Mach 1

 

[iceberg65]

Wow Tony, thanks so much; all your pictures and experience with what you have there is amazing to have! I hope I get everything in the kit that I ordered as I need it. I see why you went with a shorter hose for the drivers side; there isn't really much of a reason for them to be that long. I'm working from a bare axle housing so I'm doing all the hard lines new.

Your modifications for the park brake cables look to be spot on, reasonably easy to do and keeping the setup simple. I'll have to mock up what I have and go from there; I'm sure I can get it figured out; I have all kinds of tool available to me. You've definitely brought to light a few things I'll be sure to check as soon as it arrives.

I was very close on a new fitech setup too; I went with the EzEfi mostly becuase I found it used in Canada for a great price with a few extras. For my fuel lines I'm going with stainless braided Teflon (which I got the wrong size hose for from the supplier) I figured with the way more and more ethanol is making its way into pump gas it would be a good way to go.

 

[iceberg65]

Made some good progress over the last few days; put the gas tank back in and Plumbed the fuel lines; Still need to secure them in place with P clamps. The factory hard-line is being used for the return line that feeds into a -6 bulkhead; and I'm feeding the external Walbro 255 off the factory fuel tube.

I also got most of the EFI wiring done as well; I ended up brazing in (it was a stainless bung and a steel pipe) the 02 bung in the pipe immediately after the collector gasket. It would have been more Ideal to have it on the header side; but it would have also been a whole lot more work, I'll just have to make sure I don't have an exhaust leak at that flange. My coolant temperature sensor is in the factory location right by the thermostat, and the gauge sensor is in the port off the water pump. I mounted the ezEfi Computer on the firewall beside the heater core hoses, and I swapped out the Streetfire ignition box I for a MSD 6a I picked up for a good deal and moved it to under the windshield washer reservoir.

I'm also in the final stages of the rear end swap; sealed the center section up to the housing; just waiting for the brakes to get here to have the axles or discs machined to fit right and get it all assembled.

 

[iceberg65]

Update; my car ran off the efi today.

It's pretty neat; it definatly needs time to learn but it does improve as it runs more. I'm waiting on my second fan to show up to get them all set up so I didn't let it run for too terribly long; and I cant put it in gear to load it up until I get the rear end back in. But it was still pretty awesome. I do think the system is having a bit of a tough time with the large cam.

 

[iceberg65]

Brake kit showed up; Just need to get the rotors machined to fit my axle register. I'm going to have to get reducer fittings for the brake lines they supplied as I have bigger line on my 9" no big deal there. I see why you didn't use the line supplied for the drivers side; the one with the kit is long enough to reach the distribution block (if it had the right end on it)

 

[iceberg65]

Well the guy at the machiene shop went the extra mile to fit in my bit of work today so I got everything mostly in place; still a ways to go but this rear end swap is in it's final run finally.

I am really quite happy with the Right Stuff disc swap; the rotors look awesome (although I'm not really a drilled rotor fan) The setup and install of everything was really quite straightforward (although I still have to actually do the Ebrake cables). Overall the kit is pretty great value for the price. I did have to reduce the fitting size down for my hardline though (easy to get fittings). would be nice if the hoses were somewhat shorter, but really not a big deal.

 

[mach71351c]

Looks good,nice job!

 

[Wide-body71]

Beautiful piece.

 

[tony-muscle]

Looks awesome... did you try not staggering the calipers? It should fit and will save you the hassle of routing one parking cable behind the caliper.

Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I337 using Tapatalk

 

[iceberg65]

I have the lines run for that side in a manner that I can fit the caliper both ways; so when I do get to the park brake cable I can route it whichever way is easiest. Which will probably be non staggered. It only takes a few minutes to flip it around. The way the kit is designed is really quite versatile. I still have a bit of work on the brake system before I get to the ebrake cables though. The hard line for the rear axle is in rough shape where it attaches to the axle hose. Tried to flare a new fitting on but it just split, so I'm gonna have to put some new hard line in back there.

 

[tony-muscle]

I have the lines run for that side in a manner that I can fit the caliper both ways; so when I do get to the park brake cable I can route it whichever way is easiest. Which will probably be non staggered. It only takes a few minutes to flip it around. The way the kit is designed is really quite versatile. I still have a bit of work on the brake system before I get to the ebrake cables though. The hard line for the rear axle is in rough shape where it attaches to the axle hose. Tried to flare a new fitting on but it just split, so I'm gonna have to put some new hard line in back there.

Since you are there just replace all the lines.

Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I337 using Tapatalk

 

[iceberg65]

The lines really aren't in that bad of shape; it looks like they have been replaced at some point already and I did some work on them at the front when I put in the line lock solenoid. It was just that spot was mangled from whoever had it apart last. I went a bit farther down the tube and did a double flare and it was bang on with easily enough room to re-bend it and reach the hose.

Looks like either way I go I have the ebrake cable pointing towards the back of the car on the drivers side since I got the staggered kit (both calipers are identical) I'll see what it looks like when I actually go to hook up the cables.

 

[tony-muscle]

The lines really aren't in that bad of shape; it looks like they have been replaced at some point already and I did some work on them at the front when I put in the line lock solenoid. It was just that spot was mangled from whoever had it apart last. I went a bit farther down the tube and did a double flare and it was bang on with easily enough room to re-bend it and reach the hose.

Looks like either way I go I have the ebrake cable pointing towards the back of the car on the drivers side since I got the staggered kit (both calipers are identical) I'll see what it looks like when I actually go to hook up the cables.

You can call them and they will probably replace the one caliper. They did it for me. It will save you some headaches.

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