Finishing off the bell housing.

With the offset dowels to hand it was time to finish off the bell housing. Having figured out where the offset was by rolling the dowels on a flat surface (picture of someones 0.021" dowel)

I could then install them into the block. Luckily the original Ford dowels just tapped out with no fuss.

1st attempt didnt go well and I figured out that Id put the dowels in 180deg out!!

2nd attempt looked better with the measurements getting closer to spec.

3rd got closer still.

Finally on the 4th attempt we hit the jackpot and all the measurements fell into spec with a total missaligment of 0.0025"

It might appear like this was a quick and easy process but it wasnt! Each time an adjustment was made the bell had to be torqued up to spec and remeasured. If you take into account the couple of times I knocked the DTI out of position and had to set it all up again and remeasure to confirm correct setting it took about 5 hours in total to get to here. Still, its worth it!

So thats it bell housing correctly aligned to the crank centreline and flywheel face.

Clutch assembly next!

Bellhousing alignment.

The next major part of the drivetrain to sort out is the alignment of the bellhousing.

As the engine is putting out a bit more power than when it left Ford 37 years ago and Im using a selection of bits not really intended to be put together, it is necessary to make sure the gearbox input shaft is in line with the pilot bearing.

The way to do this is to align the bellhousing to the back of the engine and to the crank centreline.

Step 1

Check that the bellhousing rear face is parrallel to the flywheel. To do this on the Ford you need to mount the block plate first, then the flywheel finally the bellhousing.

With sufficient flywheel bolts removed the DTI was mounted and aligned on the rear face of the bellhousing.

The engine was rotated and the misalignment read from the dial gauge, the miss alignment was less than 0.0015" and therefore I judged acceptable.

Step 2

The next step is to check the alignment of the bellhousing to the crank centreline. To do this the DTI is again mounted to the flywheel but this time the tip is located on the inner register of the flywheel bore.

This time I was looking for a a total miss alignment of no more than 0.005"

With ths standard Ford dowels it was obvious that the alignment was not good enough.

With the missalignment measured I need a set of 0.07" offset dowels to shift the whole housing to the right and up a bit.

A quick call to Real Steel and its just a case of waiting for the post.

Gearbox off for rebuild.

Took the gearbox over to CTS today (gearboxman) so hopefully should get that back next week all ready to fit. My next decision is wether to paint it silver or just a clear coat of POR15. Once its back and I can see what its like after its uber clean I can make my mind up.

Ordered all the clutch bits from Real Steel today and will get the adapter kit from AK once the release bearing has arrived. I need to send the bearing to AK for adaptation.

No I need to figure out how you dial in a bell housing.....

So some small progress made.