I found a few different methods, each of which is more of a pain in the ass than it should be. The Brembo's are very well engineered. The anchoring system for the e-brake...not so much.
You have no idea. For wheel/brake/suspension/oil/exhaust work it gets the gold medal. I've slashed time and effort from most anything I do on the car now. Color me very happy with it.
Phosphate coated 4340 studs came this afternoon. I may be out of ARP hardened washers so give me some time and I'll get back to you (or try me back if you don't hear from me).
Here's the 4340 next to the 17-4 PH
Back at you. I'm ecstatic about the jacking rails I got from you. Every time I lift the car it goes up on the rails and no contact is made with the pinch weld. I'll have to get a shot of it up on stands sooner or later and send it your way. If I purchase another S550 car it would be the first mod just as it was on this car. Thanks again Kelly.
I'll track the two of you down when the next order arrives. I've got 4x the number I originally had coming in both stainless and 4340.
I finally had the opportunity to take care of a few things with the car as well as pulling photos from my camera. One thing I wanted to share was how happy I was to use Motive's power brake bleeder. I've bled brakes a number of different ways over the years but had yet to use a pressurized system at home. Quite simply, it rocks. Clean and relatively quick and I took the time to clean everything with denatured alcohol once I was done.
Now back to the axle issue I had. Again, it was the outer boot on the driver side axle, which has been an issue with a number of GT350's. I noticed CV joint grease all over the inside barrel of the wheel and where inertia laid it onto the suspension. This was after cleaning and driving the car for a short bit.
Armed with the knowledge of the source as well as documentation I had from others that had the same problem, I approached the service department at my local dealer. They just changed hands so I wasn't exactly comfortable leaving the car for warranty work with people I didn't know. They inspected the car a couple of weeks ago and told me that the axle was on back order and that they'd contact me when it arrived. This was to replace the entire driver side axle assembly and not simply a boot repair. Driving the car with a reduced amount of grease in it can damage the joint itself and dealers don't typically dissect joints themselves, hence total replacement. The problem may be the result of a clamp issue (or boot, difficult to determine without studying a number of similar failures) but nobody at Ford could pin it down at this point. Anyway, I got to know the service writer and met the mechanic that would be doing the work on the car and was put at ease. Both had quite a bit of experience and recognized the uniqueness of the car.
So this past Friday I dropped the car off. It was hard watching my sometimes orange, Race Red car disappear into the dealer abyss.
I tried reading to pass the time but found I preferred staring at a blank wall while focusing on the banging, grinding, and air tooling going on nearby. I was then approached by the mechanic working on the car. He asked if I'd like to go out back and take a look at everything. He had the axle out and wanted to show me what he went through to get there. I think he appreciated that I was already familiar with each and every component as well as the procedure.
The new axle (old one looks the same)...
The biggest pain in the ass is removing the emergency brake cable. The mechanic smiled when I told him my thoughts on it and showed me the tool he uses which makes it an easy task. Note the wear on the tool.
Once done he took it for a short test drive. I tipped him and the service writer as both took care of me and this otherwise cost me nothing. I do all my own work but when a warranty issue arises I know exactly who I want handling the car. I just hope this doesn't happen again.
I got the vehicle home and couldn't wait to get the R specs back on. So once again I pulled the factory wheels. I was only going to reclean the grease covered wheel but that evolved into cleaning all four wheels which somehow morphed into cleaning the R specs as well. Having done each back to back I can honestly say that the R style are far easier to clean than the regular GT350 wheels.
Prior to putting the wheels back on I gave everything a thorough inspection. The FTBR sway bar links (writeup coming soon - I promise!), brake hardware, various cooler system lines, etc. Everything looks great.
I am loving the lift and the time it saves.
I found a smaller diameter socket that provides plenty of clearance when accessing the lug nuts. I plan on picking up a couple more. I torqued each nut to the low side of spec (~140 ft-lbs).
This really is a great car. I learned quite a bit at the Track Attack about my own abilities as well as how far you can push this thing. The mod list has grown but for the moment I'm going to simply drive and enjoy it.
The wife just received an order of 17-4 PH stainless studs today. The 4340 MP studs are on the way too.
I'll PM those that expressed interest. If anybody else is interested just let me know or if you have any questions about them.
