T5 Clutch fork....

[thesameguy]

Yay! The board is back!

Got my order from McMaster on Saturday, which was a pleasant surprise. Just about perfect:



These are the pieces:



I used an 8mm bolt through a 5/16 ball joint because going metric gave me access to 12.9 allen bolts... but there are part numbers in there for grade 8 hex bolts just in case. The allen obviously worked out great.

My screwup is that I thought a washer between the ball joint and pedal would be sufficient, but it's not. I need an 8mm spacer there. I made one, but I do not have adequately precise tooling to get a good result so I will just go buy something.

I drilled some pilot holes in the firewall using the template:



I realized too late the top hole is about 1mm off, but it's within acceptable margins.

I bought this hole saw for the body of the master cylinder:

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B01I41775C/

It's a BEAST. It ripped through the firewall like butter. I was worried about the difficulty of this part due to cramped quarters, but, man, just never underestimate the value of a good drill bit.

The master cylinder fits perfectly.



About 4mm between it and the booster, but there's no reason they'd rock laterally so that's fine. There is plenty of clearance underneath, and it looks like there is adequate clearance at the end for the pressure line - though I still have the option of feeding it from the top. I'm pretty sure it is gonna be too high to get fluid from the brake fluid reservoir so it will need its own, but there's room for that for sure.

I can't in good conscience just put it back together, so next steps are going to be redoing the brake line that runs to the passenger side, and remaking the fuel feed & return lines. I think that should be pretty straightforward... famous last words.

[john keefe]

Looks solid so far. I appreciate the ton of work to get it to that point.

I'm trying to swap over a GT40 upper and lower tubular intake on my 5.0L, larger TB and Mass Air meter, 24lb injectors, etc., but found there is nothing that really swaps over from the stock intake for vacuum lines. So, I've spent about 4 days worth of spare hobby time fabricating my own vacuum trees, bibs and 3.25" intake pipe. So much for a "2hr job" and I'm still not ready to swap.

[thesameguy]

A friend of mine was commented that I'd reached the point in the XR where nothing is store bought or bolt-on and everything takes 10x as long. I laughed in the moment, but it turns out he wasn't wrong. A real upside of this endeavor - I keep telling myself - is that everything will translate directly to my other XR project, should I ever get there.

[thesameguy]

Progress be slow. I'm also working on a Jeep Liberty diesel at the same time... not my normal MO to have two things going at once, but 2020 was such a charlie foxtrot ... well, you know.

Anyway, I fixed up the driver's side wiring harness. TBH, I should have done this a long time ago. I like it going down the wings much better than the frame rails. Away from heat, fluids, etc.



I had to space out the windshield wiper fluid reservoir about an inch, but that was easy enough to do. I seriously contemplated removing it entirely as I have never once in 15 years used it, but meh, it's not space I need.

I then got started replacing the front brake line... 12 or 14 years ago, whenever I install the David Godfrey (RIP) T-bird master cylinder adapter I did a pretty unsatisfactory job of making new brake lines. It's worked fine all these years, but it's not pretty. So I replaced the unpretty steel line with more pretty nicopp/cunifer line:



(Man, look at that steel line... so ugly!)

I picked up some 1/8" neoprene foam:

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B08P1WVQXK/

to make a new seal between the booster & body and the clutch master & body. Next step, I need to get some 1/4" brake line to go from the clutch master to somewhere near the transmission. I could use flex lines all the way, but the less flex line the better IMO. I'm gonna go place a Summit order for the fittings & a fluid reservoir... then I'm probably on hold for a while as it's gonna get pretty rainy here.

[john keefe]

Man, I forgot just how crowded that intake side can be with the 2.3L. In your other pics, your new MC looks "normal" in size, but installed next to the booster, you can tell how little room you had to work with. Nice job. You're gonna have some fun running your line to the clutch. You have to take everything out again to mock and install it in hard pipe?

[thesameguy]

I might, but I am hoping not. The line I need to make is fairly short and fairly straightforward. But at this point it's been apart and back together a dozen times... one or two more? Meh.

My plan is to use an AN to inverted flare fitting at both ends, connected by metal line. One end's AN goes into the master, the other end's AN fitting needs to be within 12" of the transmission input shaft to connect to its flex lines.

I don't know where the reservoir goes yet... That's probably the next major packaging challenge.

[thesameguy]

I put the brake master cylinder back in to see if there's any chance of my using it to feed the clutch master:



I think it *could* work - the brake reservoir is definitely above the clutch master, but the routing of the feed line isn't great. I'd rather not cut open the feed on the reservoir and find out it doesn't work. Eh. We'll see.

I bought some 1/4" nicopp brake line, some AN->inverted flare fittings, and got the line to the slave cylinder pretty much sorted:





I think this is gonna work out perfectly... The Tilton slave cylinder has 12" lines from it, and there is exactly 12" from the center of the clutch to the edge of the tunnel...



I'll need a bracket at the tail end, but II think I gotta order the slave, see where the lines end up before I can do that. Off to the bank...

[thesameguy]

One thing that occurred to me is some sort of hose management for the lines from the clutch slave, and/or some sort of cover or plug for the window in the bell housing. I kinda expected something like like that to exist, but I've not been able to find anything.

[thesameguy]

Not super exciting, or super well done, but finished the stop for the clutch pedal.





I could have used the factory stop, but with only 1.2" max of master travel, it put the pedal uncomfortably close to the floor. Initially I was going to make some sort of adjuster, but it seemed like unnecessary complexity. I still have about 1/4" of adjustment via the coupling nut on the master cylinder, which translates to over an inch of height adjustment at the pedal. Hopefully it gets me what I need in terms of movement at the slave and a comfortable pedal height.

I also "remembered" that the T-Bird master cylinder does not have any sort of accommodation for a clutch... that MC is for automatics only, and the extra port is a giant 1/2" affair for delivering fluid to the Thunderbird's ABS system. Getting a 1/2" port reduced for 1/4" hose in a tight spot proved a non-starter, so remote reservoir it is.

I've got three options en route - an NLA reservoir for a 5th gen Monaro/GTO (#92065790), a reservoir for a 370Z (#30617-JK60A), and a reservoir for an FG Civic (#46965-S5A-013). All three are pretty compact with a side-mounted outlet. I think the GTO one is the best option which of course it is, because it's by far the cheapest, and the one I won't be able to replace in the future. Of course.

[thesameguy]

$400 clutch slave cylinder on a $300 transmission feels weird, but it does look nice....



A little threaded collar sits on the base of the bearing retainer to allow fine tuning of the position of the slave. A long stud replaces one of the bearing retainer bolts and fits an ear on the slave so it stays put, and an o-ring inside the threaded collar keeps it from vibrating around. It's a nice setup, well-thought out.

Setting the position of the slave basically consists of measuring the depth between the bell housing surface and clutch fingers, and then setting the throwout bearing height to 3mm less. Pretty straightforward.

It went together very easily and looks good:



I will be taking it back out again to work on some sort of management for the hydraulic hoses, and I'll take the clutch fork pivot out at the same time. I also need to get or make some brackets to support the hard line on the body:



As anticipated, the nod the fluid reservoir goes to the NLA Pontiac GTO.



I melted the ears to follow the shape of the strut tower. Because I'm running coilovers, there's plenty of room inside the tower to run screws in there. I need to find some 5/16" or maybe AN -6 hose to run between the reservoir and master cylinder, but that should be easy enough.

The V6 trans (with spacer) is a nicer fit in the car. I would be happy with even another inch, but hey, I'll take what I can get with easily accessible factory parts.



There's still a bunch of work to do, including finishing up the work that started this tangent, but it's inching closer to complete.

[andyofcolumbusmerkur]

Looks good! That is very close to the center and better than most of the T5 swaps I've seen. No slamming your knuckles into the radio which is cool.

[thesameguy]

I'm hoping it helps with driver comfort. My big issue is the ratio of pedals to steering wheel which I could fix by spacing the wheel out, but then the shifter would be too far. This could be a key ingredient. I've never had this problem in any other car, but I've lived with it in the XR for over 15 years. That'll start a whole other mass loss of cash... new wheels, new seats....

[john keefe]

Really impressive how it's turning out. Why the pedal stop? Is that just to ensure you're never going to over-extend the sleeve/slider? How much less pedal travel is it than the stock cable type? Is it "instant-on," or do you have some adjustability in the height of the engagement to give you some play (and you don't burn up the clutch just resting your foot on it lightly)?

[thesameguy]

The stop is there for a couple reasons.... One, because the master only has 1.2" of travel and I didn't want someone (me....) to mash the pedal against the master's limit all the time. Two, the slave has no travel limiter so it's theoretically possible to blow the bearing off the base... although the pressure plate should obviously prevent that.

I'm not sure what pedal effort will be. MDL recommends a 3/4" bore master (low effort), Tilton a 7/8" master (relatively high effort), and I split the difference at 13/16". Volume-wise, according to MDL, it'll work with this slave cylinder & clutch.

There is WAY less travel than stock, I'd so 50% or so. As it stands right now, the pedal is at stock height but that stop obviously prevents it from going to the floor. The pedal is slightly higher than I'd like it, so if I don't need the full 1.2" of travel at the master, I can reduce that travel which lowers the pedal height. A 1/4" of savings there would put the pedal at a perfect height, with a think a perfect throw. Maybe a smidge short for an '80s car but comparable to the modern interpretation of sporty I think.

Final order of hoses & fittings are en route, what I think I need to connect to the fluid reservoir to the master... With any luck, the hydraulic system will be working again this weekend and I can make those final adjustments, and probably a helper return spring on the pedal just to be safe.

I have PTSD from the T5 conversion a lifetime ago, but for the life of me I don't know why. I've had this transmission off and on four times now and it's just not difficult. Maybe 20 minutes? Really baffled at why it was such a struggle before.

Anyway, the fork pivot is out, the transmission is on theoretically permanently, and I'm 80% done with the hydraulic hose management solution I came up with. Just need to find a mountable hose clamp.... Summit has what I want, but it's $40 for a whole slew of them and I need two. Zip ties may have to do it for now.

[thesameguy]

Here's the final position, fork pivot removed for a clear view. It's actually kinda nice having a giant inspection hole here. You can even see the anti-rotation bolt that keeps the slave cylinder's orientation.