FMX to T5 swap on '70 conv.

Pedal wasn’t the problem. Cut off wheel made short work of that. The problem I had was the roller bearings were too short vs. the thickness of the bracket metal and didn’t extend thru enough to get the retaining clips on.

All buttoned up waiting on driveshaft. One minor issue is fan now rubbing top of fan shroud. Will need to shim up the trans mount a bit.

Looks good.

All finished. Got about 50 miles of test drives in. What a transformation! It’s a totally different car and I love it.

A couple of minor issues to sort:

Hydraulic clutch linkage. I’m not completely satisfied it’s adjusted correctly. Engagement is fine but it feels like there’s a bit of bind near the end of travel.

Speedo cable. MD tried to sell me a new one. I just took the new gear. It worked for about ten miles then the cable broke. Upon further consideration it was likely the original (old) and the new location of the port on the trans put a rather tigth curve in it. I’ll order a new one tomorrow.

3.50 posi was a good choice for this trans. Very happy with that.

Last point: if you do this swap, don’t forget to check bell housing runout. I did not know to do that and I suspect I’m slightly off as I get a bit of grind going into reverse. This happens even if I pop it into first or second before reverse.

Have you checked the driveline angles? I would need to google it to have accurate answers for you, but I believe you can get grinding going into reverse if the angle of the driveshaft is too steep. You might need to shim the rear end to adjust the pinion angle. I could be wrong on that though. Someone else might be able to chime in who knows better.

After talking to the guys at MD, it needs to come out and be indexed. Rats.

I did check the bell housing runout and did not need “off set dowl pins”. I have had no problem with my cable clutch system, but know others have had no problems with the hydraulic. I had a different problem with the speedo cable and replaced it with a new one. My big one was the slip yoke, it didn’t fit. It must have been milled to the big side of the tolerance; and the bushing in my new T-5Z to the opposite. I did get to return it. I sourced another one from a local Mustang shop.
I have found MD to be a stand up company and very helpful with getting things correct.
It sounds like next summer you will be having a ton of fun it her.

The good news is we’ve got two more months of summer here. :wink:

Only took two hours to get down to the flywheel. Now to just get a Ph.D. in how to set up this crazy dial gauge… :wall:

Will take another set of measurements in the morning but the first pass seems to indicate out of spec as expected by at least 0.015"

It took me several trys to get a set up that worked. As I recall I ended up removing a couple fly wheel bolts.

Something is amiss. I got what I believe to be accurate readings of the runout and while its within spec on the horizontal axis it’s way off in the vertical. As in 0.062" off which is too much to be corrected with offset dowels.

It seems unlikely that the bore could be off by that much but I had a very competent mechanic helping me take the measurements and they are repeatable.

I’ve got a new bell housing coming and will report back.

EDIT: Never mind. I’m an idiot. A wire was pinched between the top of the bell housing. Now I’m only 0.019 off and can correct for that.

Glad you figured it out.

Ok. All done now finally! Using the 0.007" Lakewood offset dowels was able to dial in to spec. Reassembled and test drove just now and all is well. Lesson learned.

Final thoughts on the whole process:

Modern Driveline and Jeff Beynon in particular were great in answering my dozens of questions. The kit was compelete and nearly totally turnkey as promised.

Things to think about for anyone that is considering this:

  1. If you’re using a trans like the T5 or TKO, you really do have to index your bellhousing.

  2. The roller bearings used for the clutch pedal are tricky to install and really go smother if you choose the tack weld option vs the C-clip route to position them.

  3. Don’t be fooled by the posts and videos showing people just popping the pedal bracket out. At least on the '69/'70 it’s a bear and requires the dash and instrument panel to come out.

  4. If going the hydraulic clutch route, really take your time measuring placement of the master cylinder in the firewall. Mine is as close to the brake booster as it could be and still work which isn’t optimal.

  5. Speaking of the clutch, the instructions and pics from MD are fine but a call to them for detailed instructions is a good idea. They gave me a procedure to follow for initial adjustments that made a big difference. Pedal feel and engagement points aren’t like what you expect if like me all you remember is old mechanical z-bar clutches.

In hind sight would you be tempted to buy the parts seperate to save a couple bucks? Or was it worth it to have everything assembled as a kit?

Totally worth it for me to go with the kit.

Unless you’re using swap meet or scrap yard parts for things like the bellhousing, pedals, etc., the new parts cost about the same either way. The advantage for me was knowing the parts were all selected to work together and work for my specific ask of car, motor, and use profile.

Certainly not the way to save money but I had limited time available in my friends shop and wanted it to go smoothly.

Glad to hear you got it sorted out and are now enjoying it.

How hard was it to install the offset pins? I’m planning on doing this conversion and this was something I had not read about until this thread. I watched a couple of videos on using the offset pins but nothing showed the removal of the existing pins or installation of the offset pins.
Steven

Actually on my car it was easy. The passenger side you can tap out with a long punch (like 12" long) over the top of the motor mount. The driver’s side had to face the mighty vice grips and lost.

EDIT: They do make dowel pin pullers that use a sleeve that slips over the dowel and tightens with a hex screw. They’re kind of pricey though.

Once you take an initial measurement and do the math to see which of the three sizes you need, the offsets go in easily and then you just turn them around with a hex key as needed until you get measurements in the X and Y access that are in spec.

One final tidbit, I belatedly took the advice of thousands of Mustang owners and swapped the crappy stock T5 shifter for an aftermarket unit.

Here’s the flimsy stock unit:

and here’s the one I selected which is the UPR Blue Thunder unit priced at $149. You can certainly spend more but this had the two features I wanted which was spring preloads to ease 2nd to 3rd shifts and adjustable shift stops for those gears all with a nice thick billet base.

Shifts so much better now.

Note: This would be a 5 min swap before the trans is in the car. It’s about a 2 hr job the way I did it. I don’t recommend doing it my way :wall: