Herman's Factory Five Racing 65' Roadster Build Site

June 2005

6/1/2005 - My Lakewood bellhousing off-set dowels arrived today. Using a level surface, it was obvious where the offset was. I marked offset half "red" on each dowel. Based on my last readings, the "offset" side will be facing at approx. 10-O'clock, as seen from the back. Once these went in, I reinstalled everything and re-zero'd the dial indicator. Took several measurements and everything is now well within the 0.015" max. concentricity.

Starting from 12 O'clock: 0
9-O'clock = -0.012" (previously -0.007")
6-O'clock = -0.0115" (previously -0.015")
3-O'clock = -0.010" (previously -0.022")

6/4/2005 - Back at the bellhousing, I spent an hour trying to reposition the dowels for a better set of numbers and discovered the dial indicator has probably been "loose"; the internal mechanism was not properly anchored inside the casing. I tightened four rather loose screws in the back of the casing and set the off-set dowels using the "slot" for the screwdriver as a reference. It made things a bit easier. So from yesterday's measurement, the slot was at the 2-O'clock position. For my 2nd attempt, the slot was set horizontally or 3-0'clock position. I took some more measurements and came up with:

9-O'clock = +0.001
6-O'clock = +0.002
3-O'clock = -0.0065

I was getting closer now. Removed the bellhousing, and punched out the dowel and reset it to approximately 1/2 between 2 and 3-O'clock positions and finally came up with numbers withing Lakewoods .005" specifications:

9-O'clock = -0.002
6-O'clock = +0.004
3-O'clock = -0.004

All numbers checked twice and at this point, I can now bolt in the clutch and tranny. As far as the clutch and disk is concerned, not much to really say. It all went together as expected. In lieu of an alignment tool, I used a 3" 1/2"-extension as a tool and it worked perfectly.

After torquing all 6 bolts, I worked on setting up the bellhousing. I wasn't sure how far to thread in the pivot bolt so I started with 1/2 way. Afterwards, I made a trial run with this setting but found the lever arm was had only 1/2" of travel forward before hitting the bellhousing:

I played with the pivot until the arm was about 2" away upon contact with the throwout bearing to the clutch. It looks to be about 1/4" of the pivot bolt is threaded in. I secured the pivot botl with the lock nut.

Finally, the moment of truth and revelation. The whole reason for centering the bellhousing became quite clear. You see, the large circle on the bellhousing is to accept the input bearing reatiner of the T5. It is in fact a very perfect fit. Using my hydraulic jack I steadied the T5 and slowly inserted the input shaft into the clutch. After a bit of wiggling around, I was able to bolt the T5 to the bellhousing. The results:

*EDIT 7/6/2006 * Please note that I've kept this entry due to it's significance as a "how to" for others to follow if they want to know how to dial in a bellhousing.

6/7/2005 - Tonight was a little bit of forward progress. The bottom half of the bellhousing has nothing to bolt to, except the engine blockplate. A couple of the blockplate holes required enlarging to accept the 1/2"-13x 1" bolts and nuts. I torqued all of these to 80 ft-lbs. The starter motor was also installed. These bolts are torqued to 20 ft-lbs. No pics tonight but I feel good that this is taken care of. I do need to buy the lever boot for the Lakewood; the steel piece I bought from Five Star Ford is a little too long and really designed for the aluminum bellhousing so I will be buying the boot sometime down the road. For now it's simply covered up with a paper towel.

6/15/2005 - I had made the decision some time ago to get the brake pedal modified for the incoming Jeep MC. However, I'm not very handy with a welding torch so I sourced Mike Everson for the task. As it turns out, he had asked for OEM plastic quadrants last August and last week, he made good on a promise to credit me some for it. All said and done (shipping quadrant and shipping the old pedal plus a little cash) I think I came out a bit ahead. Here's a side-by-side of Mike's work v.s. stock:

6/23/2005 - My newphew sold his 96' Mustang last weekend and bought a Honda Accord. So what does this have to do with this project? Well, one of the things my newphew had tried to promise was to give me his Steed Tri-Ax shifter. From the time I told him of this project, he kept telling me it's mine. Well.... it's not. But feeling bad, he told me about a Steeda "sport" shifter. What it turns out to be is the Steeda Tri-Ax minus billet handle and knob. Otherwise, it's the same mechanism as the Tri-Ax for only $99.95 (with shipping it came out to $109.95). I just received it today and took some pictures of it along side the OEM unit: