I've been procrastinating on uploading pics lol. Actually, I talked with a friend last night about towing my Jeep over to his shop this Friday. Going to get started on the exhaust and find out what my options are going to be for drivelines. He seems pretty confident that we can make it happen, just need extreme angle U-joints and maybe some custom yokes. He is swamped with driveshafts right now though, so I'm hoping I can trade some labor for shop time. It would be win-win.
92 YJ Gets a Ford 5.0
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Jeep got towed to the shop, should be doing the exhaust today. Keeping it simple and cheap, nothing fancy. If time permits, I might get the specs I need to put a parts list together for the driveline today too. The front shaft should be easy. Need new perches for the 8.8 since I need to clock it no matter which approach I take, so probably not doing that today. Only one guy in town carries those and I think he is closed on Saturdays.
Oh yeah, I had an extra fan from one of my Ford ZX2s that I tried to put on my old Jeep radiator to see if it would fit. It's like it was made for it, nearly bolted on. Hopefully it will flow enough CFM. It's a dual speed fan so it should, but the real test will be when it warms up later this year. I need to get some thermostatic switches to control the speeds, but I'll just put it on a toggle switch for now. New radiator, 3 core aluminum, is inbound. Need the extra cooling capacity for that V8. Plus the Jeep radiator is shot, as you can see in the photo. So much rust, drives me insane to see people use straight water in their cooling systems... The PO of the ZX2 and the Jeep were those people.
Oh yeah, I had an extra fan from one of my Ford ZX2s that I tried to put on my old Jeep radiator to see if it would fit. It's like it was made for it, nearly bolted on. Hopefully it will flow enough CFM. It's a dual speed fan so it should, but the real test will be when it warms up later this year. I need to get some thermostatic switches to control the speeds, but I'll just put it on a toggle switch for now. New radiator, 3 core aluminum, is inbound. Need the extra cooling capacity for that V8. Plus the Jeep radiator is shot, as you can see in the photo. So much rust, drives me insane to see people use straight water in their cooling systems... The PO of the ZX2 and the Jeep were those people.
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Got the exhaust done. My friend let me use his lift and gave me pointers on how to make the bends and use the bending machine. It was fun to learn how to do that and I ended up doing a fairly good job at it. The pipe comes out at the original location but I made it a bit shorter than OEM. Ended up using 2" from the manifolds to the Y then joined them into a collector that I made using 2 1/2" pipe that joins to the 2 1/4" pipe that goes to the 40 series flowmaster muffler. Did 2 into 1 to keep it simple and that 5.0 isn't hopped up yet, so no need for anything more. Yet. Hopefully I'll start on the driveshafts tomorrow.
Well the driveshafts are being a bit difficult. The rear is 10 5/8" long... The slip yoke is longer than that!! But I'll be able to use a modified one for now. Relocating the rear axle is definitely a must in the long run, but for now I just want to get it driveable so I can beat on it a bit and see if there is anything else that needs reworking. The front shaft is 47 1/2" long, so it's going to be fairly easy. Just waiting on the new tube to show up for that.
Drove the Jeep Saturday. It's nice having the V8 power. Still a number of little things to button up. The super short rear driveshaft is holding up pretty well, no crazy vibrations or anything. Still plan on pushing the rear axle back later down the road though.
Went to drive it yesterday and a freeze plug failed, spectacularly... The PO of the Bronco did not maintain the vehicle at all, let alone well. I really should have put in new freeze plugs before I did the swap... Doh.. And the power steering pump died. Not a surprise, Ford never did make a good one. I was told that the E series vans that came with a Windsor V8 had Saginaw pumps, so I may look into getting the brackets for that and get completely away from the Ford pump.
Went to drive it yesterday and a freeze plug failed, spectacularly... The PO of the Bronco did not maintain the vehicle at all, let alone well. I really should have put in new freeze plugs before I did the swap... Doh.. And the power steering pump died. Not a surprise, Ford never did make a good one. I was told that the E series vans that came with a Windsor V8 had Saginaw pumps, so I may look into getting the brackets for that and get completely away from the Ford pump.
It's Alive!!! Muhahahaha!!!
Took the Jeep out this past Saturday for her maiden off-road trip. It did quite well, not driveshaft issues. Much more power, and I absolutely love the V8/Flowmaster sound. Still have some things to work on. It has a power steering leak from the pressure line at the pump (I put a new pump in). The radiator hoses leak, but no surprise there. They are temporary and I'm waiting on universal hoses to come in. Temp gauge still is non-op. It's a wiring issue that I need to chase down. Still have no speedo, but that hardly hurts my feelings. Still need to get that sorted out though.
I'm hoping to get my new 20 amp outlet installed in my garage this week. My welder keeps tripping the breaker on the one outlet that I have in the garage, and it's a 20 amp outlet. This dedicated outlet will allow me to run a 10 ga cord so I can get the welder out into the driveway. Once that is done, I'll be able to start on the custom bumpers. Because I need my winch. To recover other vehicles, of course. lol
Took the Jeep out this past Saturday for her maiden off-road trip. It did quite well, not driveshaft issues. Much more power, and I absolutely love the V8/Flowmaster sound. Still have some things to work on. It has a power steering leak from the pressure line at the pump (I put a new pump in). The radiator hoses leak, but no surprise there. They are temporary and I'm waiting on universal hoses to come in. Temp gauge still is non-op. It's a wiring issue that I need to chase down. Still have no speedo, but that hardly hurts my feelings. Still need to get that sorted out though.
I'm hoping to get my new 20 amp outlet installed in my garage this week. My welder keeps tripping the breaker on the one outlet that I have in the garage, and it's a 20 amp outlet. This dedicated outlet will allow me to run a 10 ga cord so I can get the welder out into the driveway. Once that is done, I'll be able to start on the custom bumpers. Because I need my winch. To recover other vehicles, of course. lol
Setback...
So the water pump started leaking. Like the Titanic after hitting an iceberg. I took it off and found a broken stud (yay...). It turned out that the previous owner of the 5.0 broke it, stuck it back in with 5 gallons of RTV, and pretended that it was good. Bastard. I pulled the engine and got it on the stand. Pulled the oil pan and front cover and found that the PO had attempted to extract the broken stud. In the worst way imaginable. There was a drill bit or easy-out broken off in the hole and they had drilled holes around it. So bottom line is the block is toast (unless I want to pay for lots of machinist hours, which I don't).
I am going to go and look at a 97 Explorer today. It has a 5.0 with GT40 or GT40p heads, which would be nice to have. Plus a few other goodies. We shall see. Clock is ticking though, Baja 250 is in a month and a half and I want the jeep ready for that trip.
So the water pump started leaking. Like the Titanic after hitting an iceberg. I took it off and found a broken stud (yay...). It turned out that the previous owner of the 5.0 broke it, stuck it back in with 5 gallons of RTV, and pretended that it was good. Bastard. I pulled the engine and got it on the stand. Pulled the oil pan and front cover and found that the PO had attempted to extract the broken stud. In the worst way imaginable. There was a drill bit or easy-out broken off in the hole and they had drilled holes around it. So bottom line is the block is toast (unless I want to pay for lots of machinist hours, which I don't).
I am going to go and look at a 97 Explorer today. It has a 5.0 with GT40 or GT40p heads, which would be nice to have. Plus a few other goodies. We shall see. Clock is ticking though, Baja 250 is in a month and a half and I want the jeep ready for that trip.
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Damn, that's why I'm going through a complete rebuild of everything I'm putting in. The 350 block I have actually has a crack in it so now I'm looking for a 4 bolt main with 1 piece rear main myself. These v8 swaps seem to be more trouble than they're worth sometimes. I've missed out on months of wheeling already.
I hear ya, I've missed another dune season... But, I went and looked at that exploder yesterday and, well, I need more driveway space lol. The guy talked himself down to $200. It turned out to be a 96, which is even better for me. It runs, drives, but the body and interior are a bit crappy. The really nice thing is now I have another Ford 8.8 with discs that I can sell to get back some of my money. The engine has GT40 heads too, that will make my life a bit easier. And EDIS, I'll be saving that for later. Don't want to miss the Baja 250 to rewire everything. I'll have to post more pics later.
Oh, V8 swap is still worth it I think. More power with an engine that has way better aftermarket support is hard to beat. Even if the project has a few setbacks and takes longer than hoped.
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I know the end result will be well worth it, it's just getting there that's difficult
It's raining an I'm not feeling like getting greasy and wet, so I'm going to finally upload some pics. You can see how boogered up the PO of the bronco 5.0 got the block. Not worth the cost to fix that.
The exploder has a few surprises for me, like a rear diff that has limited slip in it. It also has 3.73s which is what I'm already running. I needed to pull mine and re-clock it anyways, so I'm thinking I'll prep this one and once done it will be a simple matter of swapping the axle that is currently in the rear up the Jeep.
Also, the timing chain on the Bronco 5.0 has a maximum allowable deflection of .5 inches. I found it to be nearly .75"
The exploder has a few surprises for me, like a rear diff that has limited slip in it. It also has 3.73s which is what I'm already running. I needed to pull mine and re-clock it anyways, so I'm thinking I'll prep this one and once done it will be a simple matter of swapping the axle that is currently in the rear up the Jeep.
Also, the timing chain on the Bronco 5.0 has a maximum allowable deflection of .5 inches. I found it to be nearly .75"
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Got the 5.0.2 installed. Definitely has more pep than the old 5.0. Not too pleased that I had to redo so much work, but at least it is done. I have one more weekend to prep for the Baja 250, so at least it's back to being drivable. Need to get the winch back on and get a tow bar attached so I can flat tow. Then I need to get all my LEDs on and wired in so I can do some night driving and have something other than just the factory headlights to light the way. Hopefully I can fab up a new rear bumper too, need the spare off the gate. But if not, it'll have to ride in the back.
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