I moved the car from the lift to the center bay where the electric overhead lift is supposed to take over installing the hood and trying to adjust the alignment of the front wheels. Below is the caster/camber tool that I purchased on Amazon and used to adjust the camber fairly accurately using the eccentric adjustment on the lower control arm.
I made a top-in tool from leftover metal frame material (from a picture I saw on Facebook) that attaches to the front wheel hubs. Slots were cut at the lower ends to accommodate the tape measures, and adjustment was accomplished by turning the sleeves on the steering arms. The front of the wheel is 1/16 closer than the back.
A string was stretched from back to front with the string touching the front and back of the rear tire, the steering wheel was centered, and then measurements were taken from the string to the front tensioner to align the front wheels parallel to the rear wheel.
A new hood was ordered from CJ Pony Parts with no turn signals or retaining pins which I called and had the customer pick up as they were charging $400.00 to ship a $200.00 part. They were told I would be driving from Kingman Az. to Las Vegas Nv. When I got there I was told there would be a call to their East Coast location. Luckily they had one in stock in Las Vegas, but the guy at the front desk said he had to place a new order. When he placed the new order he charged me 241.00 even though it was on sale for 205.00 on their website. I was told to go back to the loading dock to pick up the hood and he would credit the difference to my card. He entered it as a debit rather than a credit. When I got home we tried to sort it out for two days but were only able to get the charge cleared. I advise viewers to be aware of the poorly trained employees at CJ Pony Parts. 1
The ceiling lift was used to install and remove the old hood and to install the new hood.
The gap shown below is due to the hood at the front center being deformed and hitting the radiator support.
I removed the radiator to make sure the old hood wouldn’t close as it looked like the radiator was too high. The new hood was installed and closed and locked properly, then the radiator was installed and it released 1/16 inch.
After the car was moved to the center bay and sat there for a few days, I saw a puddle of oil under the rear and thought it was just the gasket leak and took the car back to the lift to replace the gasket.
I had to use a gear puller to get the pinion yoke off and then I see that the roller bearings are in front of the bearing. The gear puller had to be used again to pull out the pinion assembly and the ring gear and pilot bearing looked fine.
The yoke, seal, bearing rollers and flange/gear assembly are shown below with the destroyed front bearing frozen to the pinion shaft.
I had to use the hydraulic press to remove the bearing from the shaft.
This includes all destroyed parts, including the damaged flange where the bearing rollers are worn, the area in front of the race, the yoke with a worn groove where the seal runs, and the front and rear bearings.
The car had two rear wheels, one with disc brakes and one without, so I installed the other rear wheel and pulled out the sprocket assembly, thinking I could just use the second sprocket assembly.
These are all parts of the two rear sprocket assemblies. The 2 pinion gear and shafts are in usable condition, the bearing has been replaced, the other has a badly worn shaft end where it joins the guide bearing and the pinion has holes. One flange and one yoke are less worn than the others.
New seals and new front and rear bearings were ordered, so the car simply has to sit on the lift until it arrives. In the next post I will let you know how everything turns out. I guess that’s why it’s called a “project car.”
1. Side note: This is not the first or second time an employee has made a mistake with orders. Between the holding time (always up to an hour) and that, I can’t fix this; My wife and I have agreed to stop using this company. As a good source for Mustang parts, it’s a shame, it’s the best. But the employees’ attitudes and inability to fix their mistakes make them far from a viable provider.
