T-56 Magnum Swap Progress(?) Thread
- Thread starter offroadkarter
- Start date
Well, "pretty much" might be a bit of an overstatement, but at least it drives!
I got this in my inbox today from Revolution Automotive
[video=youtube;lUSEqhHakSA]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lUSEqhHakSA[/video]
Car looks great, awesome project!
Drag racing at the track was the most fun thing i've done with the swap. Loved every minute of it. I just would of needed to redo a lot of things, throw in a magnum instead with a cable type slave like the terminators. But with the oilfield down, i went back auto. 600/700 and 4500lbs found every week link. I But boy was it fun.
I'm glad your car came out the way you wanted. Youll love it.
Thanks!
You were using a viper spec T-56 before right? Did you not like the hydraulic setup? I have a friend with a T-3650 swapped 5.4 crown vic who did the Mcleod hydraulic conversion and he's been enjoying it so far, I was thinking of doing that 2-3 years down the line.
Your 1/4 mile video of you launching off the WOT box and shooting a fireball out the exhaust on the 1-2 shift has to be my favorite video of your truck :beer:
Remember how I put a question mark in my thread title? That was for a good reason.
This car never actually got "finished", quite the opposite. Since I started this back in fall of 2015 (that makes me feel even better), I've moved twice and started a new job. I also bought 2 new cars in that time span. Basically, life got busy and I put this project on the back burner.
The whole reason I didn't get to finish it is because I had to tear it half way apart again. That centerforce clutch I put in screwed up on me. Apparently a common problem with these, the external weights that sit on a ring around the pressure plate shifted off center and caused a bad clutch pedal vibration. I originally thought it was my cable adjustment but I could never get the feeling to go away. So I had to leave the car home from carlisle last year and sat on it for a while knowing I had to drop the trans again.
Turns out, I was right, the weight ring on the pressure plate shifted itself off center and in the process trashed the ford racing steel flywheel with hot spots on one side of the friction surface from the driveline imbalance. Thankfully, I thought ahead for this and bought a Mcleod RXT + Mcleod flywheel and Adj pivot ball. I wasn't really happy with the feel of the centerforce dual friction, it was very heavy (like a stock cobra I imagine) and very grippy, made it hard to modulate around parking lots and such. So before I started ripping this apart I decided, even if the clutch wasn't the problem, if I was dropping the trans I was replacing it.
On top of that, to make my life easier, I had the trans spit the output shaft seal out while I was driving. Some other magnum owners might be familiar with an older problem on earlier units where after 600 miles or so, the output shaft seal will just fall out. This happened to me while I was driving the car during moving, 10 minutes from home and I had to get it towed. I contacted tremec over this and the customer service rep told me my trans was made in a period where they had a "defective" tailshaft housing. Apparently the oil drain back hole was in the wrong position and wouldn't allow fluid at the very end of the tailshaft housing (where the seal is) to drain properly. I'm guessing heat would build up pressure and since it couldn't drain back properly, would shoot the seal out. That is my assumption at least if what they said is correct.
Tremec wanted me to ship them the trans but I told them I didn't have time to wait for this to get fixed. They sent me a housing and new seal so I did it myself along with one of CobraBob's shifter gaskets.
New Mcleod lightened steel flywheel
Clutch 1
Clutch 2 + PP
I cut the pivot ball shorter than what came out of my magnum, thankfully everything seems to be kosher because the clutch fork is in a good position and the clutch fully engages and disengages between gear changes. It feels so linear and smooth compared to that DFX clutch I took out, I'm really impressed so far with this RXT. I'm aiming to wrap it up this week after work so I can put the interior back together for the first time in almost 2 years, my goal is to get it to the All Ford Nationals at Carlisle this year. I'm feeling confident that I'll make it but who knows.
Here is a video I took last night testing the new RXT on jackstands (Volume warning!)
Hopefully I'll have updates during the week of progress being made instead of posting a part out thread.
This car never actually got "finished", quite the opposite. Since I started this back in fall of 2015 (that makes me feel even better), I've moved twice and started a new job. I also bought 2 new cars in that time span. Basically, life got busy and I put this project on the back burner.
The whole reason I didn't get to finish it is because I had to tear it half way apart again. That centerforce clutch I put in screwed up on me. Apparently a common problem with these, the external weights that sit on a ring around the pressure plate shifted off center and caused a bad clutch pedal vibration. I originally thought it was my cable adjustment but I could never get the feeling to go away. So I had to leave the car home from carlisle last year and sat on it for a while knowing I had to drop the trans again.
Turns out, I was right, the weight ring on the pressure plate shifted itself off center and in the process trashed the ford racing steel flywheel with hot spots on one side of the friction surface from the driveline imbalance. Thankfully, I thought ahead for this and bought a Mcleod RXT + Mcleod flywheel and Adj pivot ball. I wasn't really happy with the feel of the centerforce dual friction, it was very heavy (like a stock cobra I imagine) and very grippy, made it hard to modulate around parking lots and such. So before I started ripping this apart I decided, even if the clutch wasn't the problem, if I was dropping the trans I was replacing it.
On top of that, to make my life easier, I had the trans spit the output shaft seal out while I was driving. Some other magnum owners might be familiar with an older problem on earlier units where after 600 miles or so, the output shaft seal will just fall out. This happened to me while I was driving the car during moving, 10 minutes from home and I had to get it towed. I contacted tremec over this and the customer service rep told me my trans was made in a period where they had a "defective" tailshaft housing. Apparently the oil drain back hole was in the wrong position and wouldn't allow fluid at the very end of the tailshaft housing (where the seal is) to drain properly. I'm guessing heat would build up pressure and since it couldn't drain back properly, would shoot the seal out. That is my assumption at least if what they said is correct.
Tremec wanted me to ship them the trans but I told them I didn't have time to wait for this to get fixed. They sent me a housing and new seal so I did it myself along with one of CobraBob's shifter gaskets.
New Mcleod lightened steel flywheel
Clutch 1
Clutch 2 + PP
I cut the pivot ball shorter than what came out of my magnum, thankfully everything seems to be kosher because the clutch fork is in a good position and the clutch fully engages and disengages between gear changes. It feels so linear and smooth compared to that DFX clutch I took out, I'm really impressed so far with this RXT. I'm aiming to wrap it up this week after work so I can put the interior back together for the first time in almost 2 years, my goal is to get it to the All Ford Nationals at Carlisle this year. I'm feeling confident that I'll make it but who knows.
Here is a video I took last night testing the new RXT on jackstands (Volume warning!)
Hopefully I'll have updates during the week of progress being made instead of posting a part out thread.
Props on tackling this project. I had enough things go wrong putting my magnum/RXT in the Cobra, can't imagine throwing the task of auto to manual conversion.
Nice job Ryan!
Good job.
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Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
I'll never do another auto to manual swap in a panther as long as I live, one is enough.
I was thinking of doing a coyote/6R80 swap in the black car down the road, just ideas though.
Ryan, wow you are doing awesome mods in your Marauder.
I didn't notice it.
Very cool!
Thanks Yuichi, clearly I have a few screws loose to even start a project like this.
I'm not out of the woods yet but I guess its a promising direction. Plan on working on it tomorrow, felt too sick after work tonight to even bother. I don't have that much left to get it back on the ground so I just need to suck it up and get it done.
This is the last time I'll bump this thread because this project is finally pretty much done*.
I still have some stuff to take care of, but nothing that inhibits the car from driving out to Carlisle tomorrow.
I absolutely thrashed on this car last weekend to get everything done so I'd have time to have it detailed for Carlisle. Off the top of my head, I wrapped up
-interior assembly
-new headlight harness and two new ballasts (one relay was bad causing me to have a headlight out)
-put the exhaust back on properly this time (I had the muffler hangars on upside down for 2 years)
-oil change (last changed right before the dyno @ revauto so it was a year old
-Put the wiper cowl back in
Doesn't sound like a lot but it took a while. I wrapped up around 3:30am on Monday and dropped it off for Detailing at 10am.
Here are some shots I took
Here are some photos from the detailing. This car got pretty beat up during this whole project so it really needed a going over. I still have to go back and hit some of those polished parts hard (it sat outside for 3 weeks w/o a wiper cowl and got rained on, I think it got acid etched) but its a big improvement from what it was. Especially considering he knocked this out in a day in between storms.
(the floormats are aftermarket and much thicker than factory, I got these out of a friends wrecked car and decided to use them so I wouldn't degrade my factory mats any further)
So I'll be driving it out to Carlisle tomorrow. I don't have a ton of faith in something I threw together half asleep as fast as possible (while putting the exhaust on I found one trans bolt was finger tight, whoops!) but so far I have about 40 miles on this RXT and the trans hasn't shat the seal back out (yet). That is really my biggest concern, all my faith is on Tremec that they actually fixed this seal issue with the new tailshaft housing.
But that is it for now, once I get back from Carlisle this car is going to get parked for a while and left alone (again) while I do some work to the black car and the bmw. I've been working on this thing so long I'm pretty burnt out on it. But I'll be back at some point to waste some more money on it.
I still have some stuff to take care of, but nothing that inhibits the car from driving out to Carlisle tomorrow.
I absolutely thrashed on this car last weekend to get everything done so I'd have time to have it detailed for Carlisle. Off the top of my head, I wrapped up
-interior assembly
-new headlight harness and two new ballasts (one relay was bad causing me to have a headlight out)
-put the exhaust back on properly this time (I had the muffler hangars on upside down for 2 years)
-oil change (last changed right before the dyno @ revauto so it was a year old
-Put the wiper cowl back in
Doesn't sound like a lot but it took a while. I wrapped up around 3:30am on Monday and dropped it off for Detailing at 10am.
Here are some shots I took
Here are some photos from the detailing. This car got pretty beat up during this whole project so it really needed a going over. I still have to go back and hit some of those polished parts hard (it sat outside for 3 weeks w/o a wiper cowl and got rained on, I think it got acid etched) but its a big improvement from what it was. Especially considering he knocked this out in a day in between storms.
(the floormats are aftermarket and much thicker than factory, I got these out of a friends wrecked car and decided to use them so I wouldn't degrade my factory mats any further)
So I'll be driving it out to Carlisle tomorrow. I don't have a ton of faith in something I threw together half asleep as fast as possible (while putting the exhaust on I found one trans bolt was finger tight, whoops!) but so far I have about 40 miles on this RXT and the trans hasn't shat the seal back out (yet). That is really my biggest concern, all my faith is on Tremec that they actually fixed this seal issue with the new tailshaft housing.
But that is it for now, once I get back from Carlisle this car is going to get parked for a while and left alone (again) while I do some work to the black car and the bmw. I've been working on this thing so long I'm pretty burnt out on it. But I'll be back at some point to waste some more money on it.
So how was Carlisle?
Awesome work.
Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
Hasn't finished yet haha, tomorrow is the real day. Car has been fine so far. 95mph only turns 2400rpm whereas in my freinds marauder with the 4R70 and 4.10's, it was 3100rpm. Loving the double overdrive so far!
Thanks!
Cool to see some updates! Love your ride man
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