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So this was a bad night...

RawBurt said:
Age difference here. My friends, high teens to mid to low twenties. Yours, 30's give or take. Now, if one of my younger buddies with limited money wanted to buy an SVT because it was a cool looking race car. Do you still think that is complete BS... i dont.

I'm just saying, an SVT isn't the best car to get if you have limited cash flow and are looking for something performance wisse to have fun with.
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True. It's all about perspective. For me I've taught myself how to fix everything on the car. I think the cars are very sound of treated well. I don't see the alts. as issues. Never had one go or known someone that has. Well Kristen did but her car had 100k but that's expected. It's hit or miss.
 
I believe I already stated the point.

For the EMO's in the crowd I'll state it again
He should have bought mine
 
Those look like the cut gears the pre98s had, so this must be an early SVT? The spider gears from my stock diff looked the same as your buddies and also failed in a similar way, just broke in half. Only difference was I had a 3L powering it for 1 year. If your friend is tight for money pickup a junkyard tranny and a Torsen LSD and install it yourselves. If you follow the instructions on the Ford CD to a tee you should be good to go. That's what I did and it's been working fine for about 20K KM. I really wouldn't put a stock tranny back in and expect it to last long. Chances are you'll be picking up a tranny with the even weaker diff the later Contours had.

What worked for me was I put the stock diff out of the new tranny on a table and measured exactly how far the bearings on the diff were pressed on and then pressed the new bearings on the Torsen to the exact same depth. Then installed the diff in the tranny and did the tolerance tests and it was bang on. Didn't have to mess with the bearing races in the tranny case at all. So that made the install pretty simple. The junkyard tranny I picked up had about 60 K on it and was in brand new condition so the bearings races looked perfect. Total cost to me was about $1000 CAD with a near new tranny and Torsen LSD.

See if you guys can do it yourself, might make this affordable for your buddy.
I pulled the tranny out by taking out the left side subframe bolts and then undgoing the right side subframe bolts about 5 turns and slid the tranny out between the gap created.

Good luck.
 
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This transmission style is easiest to install a replacement diff. The shims are located under the races, so either replace the bearings and races yourself or have a shop do it - new bearings + old races is lame and is totally cutting corners. Once you have a transmission without cv's in it, all you have to do is pull the bellhousing and the diff sits on top and pulls directly out. A Torsen is greatly advised - this job should only be done once! Get the upgraded shift forks as well, they are reasonably cheap and make a HUGE difference. Forks can be pulled and replaced in under 5 minutes - CSVT#49 has a guide on this. Good luck! Your on your way to building a bulletproof transmission.
 
KyleQ said:
This transmission style is easiest to install a replacement diff. The shims are located under the races, so either replace the bearings and races yourself or have a shop do it - new bearings + old races is lame and is totally cutting corners. Once you have a transmission without cv's in it, all you have to do is pull the bellhousing and the diff sits on top and pulls directly out. A Torsen is greatly advised - this job should only be done once! Get the upgraded shift forks as well, they are reasonably cheap and make a HUGE difference. Forks can be pulled and replaced in under 5 minutes - CSVT#49 has a guide on this. Good luck! Your on your way to building a bulletproof transmission.
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Heh well new bearings come with new races so it wasn't a cost issue, once you pull out the old bearing races chances are your going to need different shims and you need to know which ones to order, IMO that's where the chance for f**k up comes in. The new bearing type was identical to the bearings on the old diff and the bearing races showed vitually no wear so I said better to copy the old diffs bearing distance and just verify that it's the same instead of pulling out the old races that I would be hard pressed to identify compared to the new ones, then try and order the correct shims that may or may not be right then I gotta pull it all apart and try different shims etc. I'd rather leave that to a specialist. It worked for me that LSD has over 20K on it installed.
 
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Oh, I had a pro trans shop install my Torsen because I dont have a bearing press and there is no reason what so ever to replace shims. Shims behind the race see no wear - if you buy your bearings and races from Ford as well as a Torsen from Ford there is no measurement required. Ford casts their products with exact specifications and as long as you use the same shims there is no worry. I have done quite a few ring and pinions using Ford parts and measured the backlash before and after instalation and it was spot on to the .001.

I still say replacing bearings and leaving old races in there is a shortcut.
 
The Five-Oh! said:
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Congratulations! You have yourself your very own Gears of War Trophy!

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KyleQ said:
Oh, I had a pro trans shop install my Torsen because I dont have a bearing press and there is no reason what so ever to replace shims. Shims behind the race see no wear - if you buy your bearings and races from Ford as well as a Torsen from Ford there is no measurement required. Ford casts their products with exact specifications and as long as you use the same shims there is no worry. I have done quite a few ring and pinions using Ford parts and measured the backlash before and after instalation and it was spot on to the .001.

I still say replacing bearings and leaving old races in there is a shortcut.
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I hear you on the castings being close to exact specifications, you can press the bearings on the diff up and down by as much as a 2-3 milimeters. So if you just shove the bearings on the diff to where they look flush with the diff housing and try to use your old shims under the new bearing races it's going to be too tight and you will experience premature diff bearing failure. The chances of you being able use the exact same shims that come out would really be really low, it would depend on how exact the new bearings were pressed on compared to the old diff for you to be sure you can use the old shims. The way I see it is the shims are there to compensate for variations in the bearing depth on the diff. So somebody at Ford already pressed on bearings on the stock diff and adjusted the bearing races accordingly for that particular tranny and I just matched that. I did it the other way around I matched the diff and bearings to the case vs the case to the diff and bearings. So if I took a shortcut it was that I used a bearing race with a bit of mileage on it, kinda like reusing rod bearings after you pull apart a bottom end, but if they truly show no wear it can be done. Not ghetto fabbing, just using what is still good and saves time/hassle. I still took time to verify that the diff is within the factory spec inside the case which is the most important part.

So if anyone wants to use this method, use it at your discretion.
 
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Avey said:
I hear you on the castings being close to exact specifications, you can press the bearings on the diff up and down by as much as a 2-3 milimeters. So if you just shove the bearings on the diff to where they look flush with the diff housing and try to use your old shims under the new bearing races it's going to be too tight and you will experience premature diff bearing failure. The chances of you being able use the exact same shims that come out would really be really low, it would depend on how exact the new bearings were pressed on compared to the old diff for you to be sure you can use the old shims. The way I see it is the shims are there to compensate for variations in the bearing depth on the diff. So somebody at Ford already pressed on bearings on the stock diff and adjusted the bearing races accordingly for that particular tranny and I just matched that. I did it the other way around I matched the diff and bearings to the case vs the case to the diff and bearings. So if I took a shortcut it was that I used a bearing race with a bit of mileage on it, kinda like reusing rod bearings after you pull apart a bottom end, but if they truly show no wear it can be done. Not ghetto fabbing, just using what is still good and saves time/hassle. I still took time to verify that the diff is within the factory spec inside the case which is the most important part.

So if anyone wants to use this method, use it at your discretion.
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Those bearings are a touchy subject. Some people say you can just leave the original shims in there and put in new bearings, others will tell you that it NEEDS to be measured.

I used a much thinner shim when i put mine together because I measured the overall stack size of the original diff and the overall stack size of the Torsen with the bearings installed to come up with how much taller the Torsen was.

That was my logic, not saying its the best way cuz i know the Ford service manual has instructions for measuring rolling torque and changing shims accordingly.
 
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