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#49's new powerplant has arrived, let the build begin

looks brand new, thats awesome.

going to do something with the starter so it looks just as good i hope?

Yea I was thinking about that... as I was spraying the housing I was like hot damn I'm going to have to do something about this starter. I'll probably just disassemble it and and blast the aluminum housing and clear that as well and leave the coil housing black.

You're not going to want to drive this car at all... Just "look at it!"

Looks good.

Oh yes I will. This car is being built to drive... it will just look damn good while doing it.
 
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I'm guessing thats what a rod shift tower looks like? never seen one...

also, did you dust it with silver first? or why is all the hardware/cover plate/output seals silvery looking too? just wondering

looks damn good at any rate.
 
I'm guessing thats what a rod shift tower looks like? never seen one...

also, did you dust it with silver first? or why is all the hardware/cover plate/output seals silvery looking too? just wondering

looks damn good at any rate.

no, thats the focus style shift tower. notice it still has pins for the cable ends.
 
I'm guessing thats what a rod shift tower looks like? never seen one...

also, did you dust it with silver first? or why is all the hardware/cover plate/output seals silvery looking too? just wondering

looks damn good at any rate.

It's because the entire housing including the bolts have all been sand blasted. No dusting was done, that is just bare aluminum cleaned correctly.

no, thats the focus style shift tower. notice it still has pins for the cable ends.

Yea it's the later pin style shift tower, but it is the OEM shifter off of a 2002 Cougar, which happens to be the same as the later style Focus. The earlier style Focus tower is what I have on my original Contour MTX-75 (shown in the comparison pic), which has the ball ends.
 
Well the trans is assembled again... and now I've decided it will be going out to Terry Haines for the build. I was debating for a little bit about just doing it myself, but with the paint work I need to get done I just don't have the time to screw with it... especially if I have any hope of driving this thing before the snow flies.

Here it is assembled with out diff to go to TH (cell phone pics so yea)...

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I might not have blasted the factory coating off all those steel parts, seems like asking for rust, ya know? just my $0.02

Yeah, I agree. He has no idea what he is doing here. I think he is just flying by the seat of his pants on this build.....
 
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I might not have blasted the factory coating off all those steel parts, seems like asking for rust, ya know? just my $0.02

So are you refering to the solid aluminum housing of the transmission... or the already rusting steel shift tower with the failing factory coating :shrug:

Shift tower base was covered, top half was blasted clean of rust, surface was cleaned/degreased, and then painted accordingly... would you expect anything less :laugh:
 
So are you refering to the solid aluminum housing of the transmission... or the already rusting steel shift tower with the failing factory coating :shrug:

Shift tower base was covered, top half was blasted clean of rust, surface was cleaned/degreased, and then painted accordingly... would you expect anything less :laugh:


I was referring to the coating on the bolts and axle seals, but then again, your in a salty frozen hell, so the factory coating was probably long gone anyway. sometimes I forget most of these cars are rusted beyond belief to begin with.

I usually try to paint all my hardware separately so it's coated on all sides.

not trying to be critical though, your build is awesome. I was originally just wondering about hardware....
 
I got ya. I had no idea you were referring to the hardware. I'll most likely powder coat them or get stainless or zinc coated hardware down the road. However this car will never see snow/salt again (it hasn't since 2006). Well maybe some sea salt if I take it down to the coast sometime :laugh:
 
I got ya. I had no idea you were referring to the hardware. I'll most likely powder coat them or get stainless or zinc coated hardware down the road. However this car will never see snow/salt again (it hasn't since 2006). Well maybe some sea salt if I take it down to the coast sometime :laugh:

yeah, everything else looks awesome, I was just wondering about all the hardware. you should get stainless and toss transparent blue clear over it. because show car....
 
Holy hell... you guys have to see my car now. The paint work we finished today... Fan-flippin-tastic. This car is going to POP in the sun. I'll get pics tomorrow if the weather is nice.

So we found out why the paint didn't turn out as well as we had hoped the first time. So we took each qt can of paint and shook the damn things for about 5min each and then used a paint stick to mix it up once we opened it... seems all fine and dandy right? WRONG. After talking with a ex-prof. painter at work who swears by HOK products he had no idea why we had problems. So he came over the other day to look over my prep work and to check out the new paint. Turns out we had to use a flippin screw driver to scrap the bottom of the qt cans to free up all of the metallic flake and the bottom of the can... I mean there was like 1/2" of this stuff, which basically provided all the substance to the paint. So the first time we painted the car it was pretty much blue tinted clear. No wonder if covered like crap. So not only that it didn't have any where near the pearl metallic flake it should have had in it either. After painting the car today night and day difference! I mean wow I'm so pumped to get this car back on the road. My mouth just about dropped when we got the base coat on the car. It was like blue anodizing all over the car. We mixed up two qt's of paint at 50% reduction... had one qt left over. To think we burnt through 3 1/2 qt's the last time :nonono: what a waste of time and money... oh well I guess it was a lesson learned... you can damn well bet I'll never forget to shake, scrape, and then stir HOK paint in the future. They should put that detail in the dang spec sheet. Simply unbelievable.
 
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ya, metallics and highsolids paints like to do that, one trick we use when we ship a can of mettallic after its been sitting a while is to ship it upside down, this usually loosens the grip it has on the bottom making it easier to stir up when the customer recieves it.

glad to hear it turned outlike you wanted,if not better, cant wait to see pics.
 
Did not get a chance to take pics today as I helped out my uncle in law replace the front brakes on a 01 Galant he bought for his daugther... anyway here are some cell pics I took the other day after we got it in the garage...

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Just a quick update:

Started to reassemble what is sitting in the car to clean up all the space. Sand blasted off my door & hood hinges I plan to paint all of the misc. stuff laying around myself later this week. I sourced an old style shift tower from Beans to send to TH to have it keyed so I'll have piece of mind with that as well. So I've decided to ship the whole trans out to TH this weekend (don't really have the time to build it myself) if I get the tower in time, which means there is a slim chance that this car may be at least running and driving by the end of Nov. I'm going to start working on simplifying the wiring harnesses and tucking them around the engine bay for a cleaner install once the inside of the car is cleaned out.
 
A package arrived for me a few days ago... and PRT delivers ;)

So these will be going in as soon as I get around to dropping my rear subframe to box it in.

prtsuspension.jpg
 
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