200,000 mile GT build

[Akurma]

good news bad news

Good news, I got the new o2 sensors and installed them with ease. They definitely seemed to help smooth out the idle issues I was having.



With the new sensors in I was able to get it idling for the longest time yet, about 7-10 minutes. Unfortunately, this exposed a new issue... an oil leak from the front. I am not sure it is the front crank seal as there is oil in the front of the crank pulley that seems to be dripping down from the crank bolt itself. I am 99% sure I put a dab of RTV on the keyway when I installed the crank pulley? Also why would it just now start leaking and not every other time I have turned the car on?







Super confused and defeated. I still have a tune session scheduled for Friday evening and don't know if I should cancel it or not.

 

[weendoggy]

I'd clean up what you can and keep the tune session. You can always redo the seal afterwards.

 

[Venompower]

good news bad news

Good news, I got the new o2 sensors and installed them with ease. They definitely seemed to help smooth out the idle issues I was having.

View attachment 19716

With the new sensors in I was able to get it idling for the longest time yet, about 7-10 minutes. Unfortunately, this exposed a new issue... an oil leak from the front. I am not sure it is the front crank seal as there is oil in the front of the crank pulley that seems to be dripping down from the crank bolt itself. I am 99% sure I put a dab of RTV on the keyway when I installed the crank pulley? Also why would it just now start leaking and not every other time I have turned the car on?

View attachment 19717


View attachment 19718


Super confused and defeated. I still have a tune session scheduled for Friday evening and don't know if I should cancel it or not.

Personally if I had good oil pressure, I would probably still have the car tuned, who knows when they would be able to reschedule.

Keep your head up! You've done so much hard work putting this together, that pulling the crank pulley to locate the leak and putting it back together is small potatoes.

 

[Akurma]

Popped the crank bolt off to check if I put a sealant on the keyway. sure enough I did but maybe not enough? it definitely seems like it is leaking from that area if you look at the first photo you and see it looks like a little pool of oil around the keyway area that leaks down to the pulley itself. Anyway I cleaned the area off with some brake clean, let it dry and then put a little bit more sealant in that area before torqueing the bolt back on.

Worst case I wasted a half an hour and it does nothing. best cast it stops or slows the leak. Either way I ordered a crank seal and seal puller tool.

I'd clean up what you can and keep the tune session. You can always redo the seal afterwards.

Yeah after thinking about it some more I am going to do that and pick up some extra oil to have on hand.

Personally if I had good oil pressure, I would probably still have the car tuned, who knows when they would be able to reschedule.

Keep your head up! You've done so much hard work putting this together, that pulling the crank pulley to locate the leak and putting it back together is small potatoes.

Oil pressure when cold its in the 65-70ish psi. When it was warming up it dropped down to about 45-50psi. So it has pressure for sure. AFR at idle is also good (14-14.5) after the new o2 sensors.

And yeah you're right, just a bummer as I am running out of time to enjoy this car before having to park it for the winter.

 

[Venompower]

Popped the crank bolt off to check if I put a sealant on the keyway. sure enough I did but maybe not enough? it definitely seems like it is leaking from that area if you look at the first photo you and see it looks like a little pool of oil around the keyway area that leaks down to the pulley itself. Anyway I cleaned the area off with some brake clean, let it dry and then put a little bit more sealant in that area before torqueing the bolt back on.

Worst case I wasted a half an hour and it does nothing. best cast it stops or slows the leak. Either way I ordered a crank seal and seal puller tool.

View attachment 19720


View attachment 19721




Yeah after thinking about it some more I am going to do that and pick up some extra oil to have on hand.




Oil pressure when cold its in the 65-70ish psi. When it was warming up it dropped down to about 45-50psi. So it has pressure for sure. AFR at idle is also good (14-14.5) after the new o2 sensors.

And yeah you're right, just a bummer as I am running out of time to enjoy this car before having to park it for the winter.

I haven't been able to enjoy the Cobra as much as I would have liked this summer, but I just remind myself that I'm playing the long game and I made progress. You'll still have "Boost" season to play with, and then can start planning/hoarding mods for next season!

Do you have a straight on picture? It looks like the clearance is tighter on one side than the other, but could also just be the angle of the photo.

 

[joe65]

yeah its the way the shit goes....2 steps forward 1 step back....story of my escapades.

 

[Akurma]

No real update, started a new job so things have been a bit hectic. Still trying to plug away at some stuff with this car. Have another tune session scheduled for this coming Saturday!

Update to the oil leak, adding more RTV didn't really do anything. So it's definitely the front crank seal, bummer. I really don't feel like pulling the harmonic balancer off but it is what it is, could have worse leaks I guess. For now I will keep monitoring the oil level until I get time to replace the seal.

Really the only thing I have done is drop what's left of the BBK cold air intake off at a fab shop to have them lengthen the IAC & PCV valve ports. I was running into an issue where they were popping off when under WOT. They weren't long enough for me to get a clamp on them either so had to have them made longer. Also had a gouge in the intake fixed as well.









I have driven the car officially 15 miles! It needs an alignment terribly but it drives great! I can NOT get over how much tighter the car feels with all the new suspension components. The car feels like it handles way better than before. The steering alone is night and day and much more responsive feeling, wonder if that's due to the 03/04 cobra rack or all the poly bushings up front

 

[Venompower]

You have gotten my thinking with the last picture, I need to get the steering wheel mount for an additional gauge... and I think I'm going to move my AFR to the steering wheel and leave Boost and the soon to be new Oil Pressure gauge to the cluster.

 

[Akurma]

You have gotten my thinking with the last picture, I need to get the steering wheel mount for an additional gauge... and I think I'm going to move my AFR to the steering wheel and leave Boost and the soon to be new Oil Pressure gauge to the cluster.

Honestly, just be prepared to be disappointed with the quality lol. its just a slightly larger steering column cover that slips over the stock plastic, and its VERY tight. It also isn't color matched so keep that in mind as well. However this is the only gauge setup that I like how it looks in the car.

Also the gauge pod will completely block the ABS, BRAKE and low coolant warning lights, just and FYI.

 

[Venompower]

Honestly, just be prepared to be disappointed with the quality lol. its just a slightly larger steering column cover that slips over the stock plastic, and its VERY tight. It also isn't color matched so keep that in mind as well. However this is the only gauge setup that I like how it looks in the car.

Also the gauge pod will completely block the ABS, BRAKE and low coolant warning lights, just and FYI.

Not sure what other options I have to add a single gauge, as I don’t want to do an A-pillar mount and I want to keep my clock.

 

[lwarrior1016]

Not sure what other options I have to add a single gauge, as I don’t want to do an A-pillar mount and I want to keep my clock.

A/c vent gauge mount?

 

[Venompower]

A/c vent gauge mount?

I want to keep my AC vents fully functional. I think the color match may not be an issue because I have a 96’ and Akurma has the graphite interior.

 

[lwarrior1016]

I want to keep my AC vents fully functional. I think the color match may not be an issue because I have a 96’ and Akurma has the graphite interior.

Ac stays fully functional. The vent just has a gauge mounted in it. Air goes around the gauge

 

[Venompower]

Ac stays fully functional. The vent just has a gauge mounted in it. Air goes around the gauge

I meant the ability to aim the airflow. I don't think the column mounted gauge will bother me, AFR front and center with oil pressure and boost on the cluster.

 

[Akurma]

Long time no update, will probably be the case until spring. Currently busy with work and life and lacking motivation to work on this.

However, I took advantage of the unusually warm weather to get the chance to finally swap in the Mach 1 seats that I picked up last year at the Ford Carlisle show. Even though the driver seat isn't perfect it looks a hell of a lot better than it did before. Eventually I'll get new leathers for both front seats. For now I am happy. Easy straight forward swap but did run into three small issues.




















First issue was one of my driver side seat bolts snapped clean off, fortunately this was the only one. There is plenty of thread left on the under side of the car so I am going to try and heat up the thread and see if I can spin it out with a pair of vice grips. If not I'll break out the good old drill and tap set.



Second and third issue both pertain to the rear seats. Not deal breaker issues but maybe others will have feedback for me. When swapping the upper rear seats I noticed that the frame that the seats bolt to is slightly different than the frame that came with my 1999 GT. Where the frame mounts to the chassis down low is styled differently, assuming that Ford did a production run change or something. (pictured below, 99 frame on left, Mach 1 on right. Notice the Mach 1 frame sits lower and has a large oval slot.) Wasn't a big deal just swapped the Mach 1 seats over to my 1999 GT frame.

HOWEVER the Mach 1 seats will NOT fold down now. No matter how hard i pull on the pull tabs I can't get them to fold down at all. I don't see any difference whatsoever in how the seat backs hook into the lock between the two frames. Anybody have any ideas as to why they wouldn't fold down or how to fix it? not a huge issue as I hardly ever folded the seats but it was a useful feature.

 

[lwarrior1016]

When you swapped seats on to the frame, did the pivot bolts get tightened too much?

PS: I haven’t done this swap so I don’t know exactly how it functions.

Could you have just drilled a new hole in the Mach frame?

 

[Snorky]

My rear Mach 1 seats have that same problem. Only when I bought them I didn't have the frame. Seems like I had to lift the seat as hard as I can while pulling the strap to release it

 

[Akurma]

When you swapped seats on to the frame, did the pivot bolts get tightened too much?

PS: I haven’t done this swap so I don’t know exactly how it functions.

Could you have just drilled a new hole in the Mach frame?

if by pivot bolts you mean the ones on the bottom sides of the seat backs, then yes I did tighten down them down pretty snug.. you might be onto something here! i'll have to loosen them a bit and see if that was the issue

As for using the Mach 1 frame, i could be not really lol. The hole in the chassis of my 99 Gt is slightly higher and to the left of where the Mach 1 frame hole is. pictured below

My rear Mach 1 seats have that same problem. Only when I bought them I didn't have the frame. Seems like I had to lift the seat as hard as I can while pulling the strap to release it

YES I have to really yank on the straps and pull as hard upwards as possible! I ended up having someone crawl in the trunk and hit the seat backs towards the front of the car while I held the straps. Doing so let them fold but it should be a two person job hahah

 

[Snorky]

if by pivot bolts you mean the ones on the bottom sides of the seat backs, then yes I did tighten down them down pretty snug.. you might be onto something here! i'll have to loosen them a bit and see if that was the issue

As for using the Mach 1 frame, i could be not really lol. The hole in the chassis of my 99 Gt is slightly higher and to the left of where the Mach 1 frame hole is. pictured below

View attachment 21963




YES I have to really yank on the straps and pull as hard upwards as possible! I ended up having someone crawl in the trunk and hit the seat backs towards the front of the car while I held the straps. Doing so let them fold but it should be a two person job hahah

Shameful for me to say that was pretty low on my priority list and I frankly forgot about it. Lol I'll tack that on the list after I get the car dynod and go through the suspension. Wonder if the bracket needs to be slotted a little to drop it down. Or if the bar up top needs influence

 

[RAU03MACH]

Popped the crank bolt off to check if I put a sealant on the keyway. sure enough I did but maybe not enough? it definitely seems like it is leaking from that area if you look at the first photo you and see it looks like a little pool of oil around the keyway area that leaks down to the pulley itself. Anyway I cleaned the area off with some brake clean, let it dry and then put a little bit more sealant in that area before torqueing the bolt back on.

Worst case I wasted a half an hour and it does nothing. best cast it stops or slows the leak. Either way I ordered a crank seal and seal puller tool.

View attachment 19720


View attachment 19721




Yeah after thinking about it some more I am going to do that and pick up some extra oil to have on hand.




Oil pressure when cold its in the 65-70ish psi. When it was warming up it dropped down to about 45-50psi. So it has pressure for sure. AFR at idle is also good (14-14.5) after the new o2 sensors.

And yeah you're right, just a bummer as I am running out of time to enjoy this car before having to park it for the winter.

I put a bead of silicon on one side of washer to face crank and bolt it back in