Installing MustangSteve's Clutch Cable

In an effort to fully modernize the mustang, I decided to install MustangSteve's homemade clutch cable modification. The kit includes ball bearings for the pedal shaft, the clutch cable, two home-made adapters, and several washers. My kit was missing one washer, requiring me to go to ACE hardware once, and apparently, no kits come with two necassary 5/16" one inch bolts and washers, requiring a to return to ACE.

Anyway, the project requires to take apart the brake pedal assembly which took about an hour or two. Then, an adaptor is welded onto the top of the clutch pedal assembly. MustangSteve instructs in the supplied instruction sheet, and I qoute: "The cable retainer bolt goes to the rear." And so, as expected I welded the adaptor with the bolt to the rear. Since English is my second language, I presumably misunderstood the aforementioned instructions due to my poor English level. Not! It turns out the bolt must be in the front! So I had to grind off the rare, and beautiful weld that I paintstakingly made and reweld a shabby one instead. That took another hour or so. I think he meant the bolt goes to the rear of the car, i.e. the front of the pedal...whatever.

After that, I had to drill a hole for the cable to pass though the firewall. Unfortunately, the cable rides high, requiring some cutting/banging/bending some metal to make it fit. See picture:

The roller bearings were pretty straighforward to install. Remove the old ones, weld new housing and spacers, and slip on bearings. The only easy part of the installation.


Finally, as predicted by MustangSteve's website, I have the wrong headers, which means the clutch cable rubs along the headers which undoubtedly will cause it to melt in due time. I'm going to wrap the headers with some heat shields and cross my fingers. Wish me luck!

Installed 5.0 engine and T-5 tranny

Since I am unable to pull the car back, I had to install the engine from the side of the car, over the right fender. Strangely enough, it worked! With the help of my neighbor, we installed the engine in the car in just under ten minutes. This was sans transmission, most of the accessories, and the headers.

Putting the transmission proved to be signficantly harder. I decided to put in the transmission fluid in before installation - warning: don't ever do that! All the fluid spilled on us as we tried to hoist into the car, so fill the tranny after it is fully installed. After heaving the hundred pound tranny on my chest for several interminable minutes, we finally coaxed it in after half a dozen tries. The tranny shaft slips right through the clutch-fork and throwout bearing, through the pressure plate and clutch, finally resting on the pressed in clutch bearing.

Fortunately, my driveshaft has a 28 spline shaft so it slipped right into the T-5 tranny. It it my understanding that you must have .75-1.5" of space between the slip yoke base to tranny. Any different and you need a longer/short driveshaft. I'm afraid to measure it!

Two final notes. A new crossmember has to be installed for the T-5, but the rubber mount is still for the old mustang, go figure. Also, when installing the tranny, install it with the shifter off for ease of installation. The new shifter itself sits a little forward of the stock shifter, so be sure to extend the shifter hole by 3 inches before trying to reinstall the shifter!

Installing Clutch

After many delays I finally installed the clutch. This process entailed pressing in a clutch bearing. (Press-in using a large socket and hammer). Then mount the engine/bellhousing aluminum spacer with some gasketmaker. The flywheel (not the flexplate) is then torqued in at 75-85 ft/lbs. Then, with the help of alignment tool mount the clutch, and pressure plate on top of it with eight attaching bolts. Finally the bellhousing is attached to the engine. The clutch fork and throwout bearing can be installed after the bellhousing installation. I also mounted the starter at this point. Unfortuntely, I was missing most of the bolts, so ACE hardware is now one of my most frequently visited stores - after AutoZone, of course.

Since I eliminated the smog pump, I also had to plug the head exhaust ports that are part of the smog system. These are at the rear of each head. Just plug them with a one-inch 5/8" bolt. Tada!
Now I have to put the engine in the car. But, of course, another delay! I don't have enough room in front of the car to roll the engine hoist. Unfortunately, the front suspension is all taken apart, so I am unable to roll the car back. Stay tuned for the solution to this dilemma.

Delays, delays, and more delays

I have gone absolutely nowhere on the Mustang in the last two months. Work got in the way, when I wasn't working I was snowboarding up in Park City. When I wasn't doing either one of those, I was vacationing in Israel.

I did have a little time to work on the car, but unfortunately, it was prone to many mistakes, failures, and delays.

The 5.0 engine I purchased came off an automatic Mustang. I didn't think it would matter. Boy, was I WRONG!! The problems began when I realized I needed 6 bolts for the pressure plate attachement to the clutch. I had to special order them from Ford which caused a week delay. (I later returned them and purchased the same bolts at ACE Hardware for a fraction of the cost). I then brought in the flywheel to be resurfaced, only to be laughed at by the machine shop. "That's not a flyweel!", they said. Turns out it was a flex plate which is for automatics only - dooh!

I purchased a flyweel a week later and began bolting it on followed by the clutch, pressure plate, and bellhousing - only to realize that the engine/bellhousing aluminum spacer doesn't fit! Why? Because it's for automatics only! So back to another delay.