Thanks for the tip on the seal! The fel pro one I purchased recommends using anaerobic sealant on the outer race of the seal as well.

I would way rather have a driveshaft with a slip spline rather than the two piece; it looks like I would either have to relocate the fuel tank or massage it to make room to mount the carrier bearing. I think I'll just bring my truck in to a drive line shop and have the take care of everything.

 

That would be really nice if I could find one of those driveshafts and modify it, the one you found is actually in the town I live in back home haha. Problem is I'm in Odessa,Texas.

I'm sure I could find another one of those type drivelines down here. What years and drivetrain setups do I need to look for to find a splined slip yoke driveline?

 

It will likely be easier and faster to just have one made, my brother is a mechanic down here and he was just telling me of a good driveline shop that his outfit likes to use. Apparently a bunch of old gearhead hippies who cut a pretty mean deal on driveline work haha

Yeah sorry for the TX confusion, haven't updated my profile yet, I don't plan to be down here for more than a few months anyway.

 

Ok sorry for the delay getting back on here. Got the ZF5 hooked up and ready to party, I took a risk and didn't have it inspected before installing and have been driving it for the last three weeks; so far so good. Hopefully she lasts long enough for me to get a back up ride in case she drops a big brown one in her trousers.

The install was super simple; no issues at all. My old school speedometer sending unit plugged directly into the new trans and is working just fine, however i need to throw a smaller gear on the unit or get a bigger rear end for the readout to be correct. Only other issue was the driveline shop that claimed had to build me a completely new driveline from scratch just eyeballed my u joints and didn't actually measure them for size and ended up using u joints that were too big, so I had to take the thing back and they gave me combo ujoints to adapt to my truck. Pretty weak considering i had to pay nearly $600 for A DAMNED TUBE.

Anywho here's some pictures I took along the way for anyone who cares to see how I went about it:

 

I didn't have a transmission jack to lift my trans into place, which I figured would then mean that this was going to be a pain in the *** to install without one. Instead, my brother suggested I use tie down straps to suspend and align it which I think worked a lot easier than a transmission jack would have, especially for installing it solo. I used a regular floor jack to get the trans near the height I needed and then looped my straps around it to suspend it and removed the floor jack completely.

I used three separate straps; I used the cam lock style which I think worked better and faster than ratchet straps would have: One just behind the bell housing and one right under the tail shaft housing, the third I hooked into the hole on the bottom of the bell housing and up front onto the bumper. The two straps suspending the trans can be easily adjusted to get it pitched just right to mate onto the back of the motor while the third attached to the bell housing and the bumper is used to yard the trans forward onto the back of the motor.

The strap behind the bell housing is looped onto a motorcycle ramp I had laid across the trans tunnel access pan/hole while the strap on the back of the trans is just hooked onto frame rails on the left and right sides of the truck:

 

$600 for a custom driveshaft?? Wow, that's... that's more than I would have paid.
I had both my front and rear lengthened and shortened, and new u-joints installed for a little over half that. Granted, the Bronco driveshafts are pretty tiny, but still.
So, hopefully it was quality work.

Nice work on getting in and running! How's you're enjoying it?
Honestly, if you don't have any problems with it yet, you're probably not going to have any for a while.
Problems would arise right away, with gear grinding, hard to get it in gear, popping out of gear, etc. Manuals generally don't "just up and die" like an automatic, they fade slowly.

I installed my ZF solo with a transmission jack, so it's not too bad. Glad the straps worked out really well for you!
When I pulled my ZF out of the junk yard, they didn't let you take jacks in, so we used ratchet straps to create a sling and drop it down
What did you hook your straps to? I couldn't find anywhere on the body that didn't bend it. There was quite a bit of bent steel on the tub from the transmission pulling down on the strap hooks.


Either way, good work! Enjoy the transmission, they're fantastic.

 

Yeah I thought $600 for a twisty tube was ridiculous too, but I'm in the Texas oilfield and it's going through a boom so everything is expensive as hell, and lots of places (like the driveline shop I went to) have a weird attitude as if it's an inconvenience for them and a privilege for you to use their services that you're paying for. The manager was almost pissed at me for coming back with the driveline even though it was totally the shop's fault; I gave them the length I needed down to 1/16 of an inch, BOTH my o.g. driveline and the donor driveline and they still got it wrong, and supposedly "couldn't use any of what I brought to make a new one" (which I feel like was either a lie to get more money from me or they were just being lazy) so they built a totally new one from scratch. So if anyone ever needs one built, make sure they get your damn ujoint size right.

Thanks! Yeah I definitely dig this gearbox big time, love the overdrive; it cruises even better than my old SROD did. Could definitely use a bigger rear end but I don't think I'll be towing with this pickup like I thought I might so I'll probably just leave it for now. My brother keeps telling me I need to swap that limited slip I mentioned in my last thread from the newer f150 on it haha. Looks like it wouldn't be too terribly complicated to adapt either, would have to relocate the shock mounts a bit but otherwise its just an inch or two wider and a 6 lug instead of the older 5 lug like mine.

The only thing that concerned me at first was how noisy my transmission is, but after reading about it apparently its pretty common. Mine makes a whirling bearing type noise when its in neutral and the clutch is engaged even though I have a new pilot bearing and throwout bearing. I can hear the heavy gears knocking around and lashing if I abruptly cut and apply throttle especially when I'm in forth or fifth, as well as a "loose change" type rattle but I'm not sure what it could be or if it's even a cause for concern. Regardless of the noises the thing runs smooth and shifts nice so I think she'll be ok

I'll continue posting how I did it and put up some pictures of how I routed my straps:

 

Here you can see where I hooked up the strap on the back of the trans: I couldn't get it on the actual frame so I put it on that lip of the body paneling, puts a bit of tension on the strap since there's not much of an angle to suspend the trans but it didn't cause me any issue. I just had to slip the hook in from the wider opening from the right and she was good to go.

 

Looking up at the trans tunnel access and my strap routing, just looped it up and over my motorcycle ramp and down on the other side making one big simple loop around the trans.

 

Inside the cab looking down at the moto ramp laid across the tunnel access hole with my strap routed up and around it:

 

The third strap with one end hooked into the hole in the bottom of the bell housing and the other end hooked onto the front bumper. I was afraid that my hook was going to get jammed into my clutch bits but there was plenty of clearance.

 

Another shot of the front strap.

 

Here you can see the fruits of my labor: The transmission intimately mated to the motor as one passionate unit; ready as she'll ever be to give birth to vehicular propulsion.

You can also see one of my alignment studs I made on the top of the bellhousing, just picked up some long bolts and torched off the hex's and ground what was left into a smooth round shape; worked great.

 

A shot of my 300's o.g. spacer plate on the front of the trans: A couple of the plate retaining bolt holes didn't quite line up but I got two of em hooked up and it doesn't seem to be causing any issue so far.

 

Here's my new master cylinder (ordered one for my truck, not the donor). To bleed it by myself I hooked it up to the slave (the line required for the ZF5 slave cylinder plugs right into my older generation master) and filled it up with fluid and held it between my legs as pictured, which kept it lower than my slave allowing air bubbles (there were plenty) to bleed out easier for me. I depressed the pushrod with my right hand while holding the master tightly with my legs and simultaneously cracked open the bleed screw on the slave and bled it that way. A bit tricky but wasn't too bad, got her bled out and up to snuff.