Madaguy 1955 Nomad Build

[ryeguy2006a]

Since I don't have any prior experience with Ford 9" rear ends, I made a call to quick performance to ask them about the order for the spacers, bearings and locking rings. I called them to confirm since the LS1 rear brake setup is probably not as common as the Ford brakes. The guy I spoke with told me that with my LS1 rear brakes that I didn't need the spacer. Wonderful, because I want to make sure that my brake offset is right so I don't have to do it twice and have to remove the bearing since they are a real PITA to remove in one piece.





Quick comparison of a stock 17 spline 55-57 axle and an aftermarket 35 spline. Huge difference!



After bending the lip back on the gas tank, painting the straps, welding in the bump stop that I removed 2 years ago, welding a tab for the brake hose, fighting with a badly leaking caliper brake hoses... I was finally able to install the rear for good. The leaking brake hoses were 100% my fault. I had them oriented horizontally on the machined surface on the caliper, but the brake hose needed to be 90* our because it had a lip on the bottom that wouldn't allow the hose to sit flush. Once I figured out what I did wrong, I was able to get them to seal up. Very stressful in the moment when brake fluid is gushing out of both calipers!





Tons of clearance!



Now that the rear is installed, I can finally install the rear axles and get the brakes final installed and bled.



Stoked to have it finally installed, but as I found it very difficult to get the nuts installed and tightened down. Like there wasn't really enough room? I'm thinking that I may need a specialty tool or something. I was able to make it work with what I had and got everything fully torqued down and really happy with how it's all fitting together. I pulled the brand new rotors out of the box and immediately notice something's not right. The rotor can't fully seat against the axle flange. After troubleshooting, I determined that it couldn't go any further because it was being hung up by the inner parking brake.

Here's the part I missed...



I went in for the night and made a call to Quick Performance in the morning. After troubleshooting for several minutes the tech figured out that what happened is most people order a single bolt patter for the rear axles and with that style blank they require no spacer, but I ordered a dual pattern which does require the spacer. I was happy to learn what happened and now I know what my fix is, but no I need to do what I was trying to avoid and remove the brand new axle bearing. I have a bearing puller, and bought some long all thread to get the extra reach, but the puller kept slipping off. I was getting quite frustrated at this point. Then I thought one last ditch effort would be to attempt to use my press. By some miracle, I was able to get enough of the lip and pull the bearing off completely unharmed.



I installed the spacer, then pressed it all back together with the locking ring and was able to get it all installed correctly. You can see how much more space there is between the parking brake and flange now. Oh and the little missing spacer haha.





Then I moved onto the driver's side. I thought it was some surface rust or something on the axle, but after I pulled it out there were some gouges in the machined surface. I again called QP and they were extremely apologetic, and quickly sent me out a replacement axle and a swag bag to say sorry for the trouble I had. I'm extremely impressed with the customer service from Quick Performance. Stuff happens, and I will gladly purchase from them again.





I didn't take any pictures, but as soon as the axle came in, I painted the flange quick, pressed the new bearing on with a spacer and added the locking ring. Installed everything and it practically fell together.



I didn't get any installed pictures, but my Billet CPP adjusters came in and I installed the tie rods with new MOOG inners and outers. Now the steering is all back together, and can check that off of the list.



I also buttoned up and reinstalled all of the interior dash, steering column and reinstalled the shifter with linkage. I pulled the column so that I could install the seal and cover for the column without cutting it. Turned out pretty good. I need to trim the carpet back a little bit, but overall glad that's installed. That should significantly reduce the amount of engine heat coming into the cabin.



I also installed the little clip that allows the shifter indicator to work. It was very inaccurate, but I lined it up so that it worked with Drive so at least that is right.



The last thing was swapping out the ujoints so it would work with my 1350 yoke on the rear differential. Once everything was buttoned up, it was time to pull the car out of the garage again. The engine fired right up and ran very well considering I swapped the 36lb injectors for 95lb. There were some corrections that the ECU had to do, but once it learned the table around idle a bit, it smoothed right out. I backed the car out and just let it idle. I checked for leaks and was very happy when I didn't find any. I let the fans cycle and things were going great. I pulled it ahead because I was going to snap a picture with the new lowered stance. All of a sudden I heard a hissing sound and there was a fountain in the engine bay of fuel. Shut it off immediately and backed it into the parking spot outside.

After I cooled off, the next day I determined that when I made the mounts for the fuel rail on my bench, that the injectors weren't fully seated down into the intake. So the rear injector pushed down with the pressure from the fuel rail and it dropped enough for the upper oring to fall out of the seat and break the seal. It was a fairly quick fix. I determined that the new mounts needed to lower the rails by 1/8" and that's all it took. I made 4 new brackets, reinstalled and zero leaks. What a fiasco, but I'm glad it happened in the driveway rather than on the highway! After all of that, here's a picture of the new stance. I love it!!





The plan now is to find a shop that will give my car a proper front end alignment and then drive the dang thing!!

Cheers,
Ryan

[ryeguy2006a]

After calling around to different shops, I found a place fairly local that did alignments on older cars. Even the one restoration shop in town recommended them, so I made an appointment. They were able to get me in on Friday the 13th. Not sure if it's good or bad haha.





Car was in good company, so that made me happy.



One thing that has been terribly annoying ever since I swapped the intake and C6 Throttlebody is a loud whistling sound. I thought originally it may be a vacuum leak, but turns out after doing some research when the LS3 throttlebodies are turned upside down they can whistle badly. The solution is porting the hump that is normally on the top of the intake path. I carefully smoothed out the transition and it definitely helped, but the whistle is still there. I may need to do a full on port job to get rid of all the ridges.





I was working on the car a little bit on father's day and decided it was time to install the lower 1955 Nomad trim on the kick panels. Trouble was the trim studs that bend over were either rusted or missing. I made some new tabs and then turned my tig welder way down and was able to fix both sides.





I polished up the original waffle panels and then installed on my new kick panels. My father-in-law gave his light blue panels to me a few years ago and I used SEM vinyl dye to change them to black. Just haven't taken the time to fix and assemble them until now.



I need to clean and paint the original grills, but then they can be installed for good.



I also wanted to get the hole covered back up that I made to access the fuel pump. I bought a flange tool to create a lip, made a cover out of some thicker aluminum sheets I had, and then bent/trimmed it to fit in the recess. Came out nicely and I opted to attach it with seam sealer rather than bolting it together.









I didn't take a picture, but I also used my router and cut out the space above the fuel pump so it wasn't putting pressure on it. I want to put to glue the carpet down on the cargo floor and the rear seats so it will be much more complete. I also think I need to glue some of the carpet down in the passenger area since it slides around quite a bit.

I took the kids to summer camp today that was at the school and got a great picture of it. Love the new stance! I do think that the springs have settled a bit though since my alignment because it seems to be darty and has a fair amount of bump steer now. I'm going to put a few hundred miles on it and see if things get better/worse. Overall I'm stoked with all the upgrades from this winter and now she's getting some miles on her.



Next up is a new pair of front tires. I'm thinking that may have something to do with the steering feeling darty too.

Cheers,
Ryan

[Steve68]

Keeps getting better and better, Thanks for the information on the rear end, I'm actually working on my LS rear brakes and the rear is being shortened at the racecar shop, looks like there finishing it up, have a laundry list I'm working on,