love the post anyone got a driveshaft for a shortbed f150 with a 4.9 and m5od available if so hit me up btw 2wd

 

Well I have been looking for something like this. Can anyone direct me another forum post on this. I would like to read up a little more on it. I have a 5.8 hooked up to a mazda r2 right now and I dont like it at all. It doesnt seem to hold up to my kind of driving and I would LOVE to swith it out for the heavy duty tranny.

 

I know someone who blew their M5OD with a 300 6 too. You're right 300 6, with ZF-5 and manual hubs should be about bulletproof!

 

Sorry about resurrecting a dead thread, but I just wanted to give people a heads up on some erroneous information from earlier posts. I just bought an S5-42 out of an '89 truck to replace my worn M5R2 ('88 F150, 2wd, king cab, long bed). The 2wd ZF transmission is not the exact length of the 2wd M5R2, so if you are trying to do this swap, your driveshaft will not work. I've measured, and the M5R2 is about 6" longer than the ZF, so you'll need to grab the shaft out of the donor vehicle as well, supposing that it's the same length truck. The M5R2 uses a slip yoke like in an automatic as well, so you'll also need the u-joint straps (u-bolts) to bolt your drive shaft to the yoke of the ZF.
I went to do this this morning based off the information in this thread and realized I was dead in the water when I measured the two. It's off to the junk yard tomorrow morning to search for another drive shaft. I'm assuming this happened because the others who posted had 4x4 transmissions, which I'm assuming don't have the different-lengths-issue. I think the extra length of the Mazda tranny is in the tail stock, after the cross member bolts, to accommodate that slip yoke design. Since there's only about 1-2" of play in that center bearing that holds the two-piece drive shaft up, there's no way this will work on my truck without more parts. When I finish the swap, I'll post on whether I'm successful or if I end up with more complications. I don't see any, but you never know....

 

A 4x2 driveshaft from an F250 is not a simple bolt-in swap. There is a length difference on the rear half of the two-piece driveshaft of about 3" due to the difference between the 10.25 and 8.8 axles. You may be able to use the front half from an F250 ZF truck and the rear half from your original F150 driveshaft, if it had a two-piece driveshaft with the Mazda transmission, then have it balanced.

 

Thanks for the heads up. That's what I'm doing now. Just got the front half off of an F250 with the ZF this morning/afternoon. Found it at the 6th junk yard I visited. Didn't think I was going to find one this long, but it panned out.

The front and rear halves are balanced as an assembly? If so, I've still got some work left to do after tonight.

 

Got the ZF S5-42 installed. The drive shaft I bought wasn't the right length after all. I measured it but I must have been off when I was under that junk yard truck. It was 2" too long. I thought about taking it to a shop that does custom drive shafts, but the idea of waiting a week to get my truck off of jack stands in a garage that I couldn't close the door on didn't sound like a great idea to me.

So I decided to try to shorten the one I bought from the junk yard. Worst case scenario, it would at least let me move the truck around to free up the shop. I put the shaft into my little 1929 9" Craftsman lathe and extended the bedways onto another bench with a pair of skateboard trucks screwed to the top as a steady rest. It worked like a charm. I used a cutoff wheel mounted to the tool post and ground off the welds and chopped the shaft with it spinning so I could keep the cuts perfectly plumb.

I phased it to the slip yoke by eye and welded in 1/2" lengths at a time, turning 180, 90, 180, 90 repeatedly until all the welds met. I checked the run out with a dial indicator before the shaft was cut, and it was out about 25 thousandths right behind the weld. When I got done with my repair, it was within 5 thousandths total run out, so I was pretty happy about that. I don't know how that happened either because the closest I could get it before welding it was about 20 thousandths.

After some touch up of my sloppy welding, I threw it right on and took it for a test drive. Started out with some slow stuff and gradually increased speeds until I took it on the freeway. Not so much as a shiver the whole time. I think I got pretty lucky and don't need to balance or get another shaft. Took it up to 85 after cruising for a while, and still smooth as glass. A nice added benefit is that I used to get a shimmy at about 30 mph that is now gone, either because of the old driveshaft, or because of those worn bearings in the Mazda transmission. It also feels much stronger at all rpm in any gear. With the old tranny in I could floor the gas and not feel it pull at all, but I get pretty instantaneous throttle response now. That 300 torque is a thing to behold when the running gear isn't dragging on the motor. The first gear whines like a semi truck's does too, which is cool. I think I have to shift at a whopping 7 mph if I start off in first, haha.

The only thing that concerns me is that the ZF rattles pretty loudly in neutral with the cluch out. There is no noise at all when either the clutch is depressed or it's in gear. Is this by chance normal on these S5-42's?

I found a troubleshooting guide on the S5-47 that indicated that some noise in neutral was normal on the heavier trucks, but it's very loud, which concerns me. When I goose the throttle in neutral, it gets louder for a split second, then goes away until the RPMs drop down to idle, and the noise returns. I can also make the noise all but go away if I push up on the stick shift toward 1,3,D without going all the way into gear. Pulling down on it towards 2,4,R is no change.

Is my shifter bushing worn by chance? I had the shift bushing problem in the R2, and it made a similar noise too. The funny thing though is that the ZF shifts like it's brand new, but the R2 would barely go into gear before I replaced the bushing. Anyway, I'm glad I at least got it running. That drive shaft difficulty was a bear.

 

I found an article about the ZF that gives a test to see if the "loud" noise coming from the transmission in neutral is just rollover noise. If the noise floats out, or disappears, above 1500rpm, that means it is always neutral rollover. No amount of "repair" will eliminate this noise. I don't really car if it's noisy, personally, as long as it doesn't grenade while I'm in the middle of the Nevada desert on a cross-country trip. That's good info to know. Here's the link:

I also made a videos of my swap, which can be seen here:

 

Hi, found this thread pretty helpful as I have just rebuilt and installed a s542 in place of the M50D in my 96' 150. Hope its not too stale for posting.

Long story short, I am getting some bizarre noises only during hard decel(braking), not like anything mentioned anywhere else and I am wondering if anyone else can shed light on this. I'll save you all the details for now until someone is curious enough. I should note everything works really nice (400+ miles nice) and its not a gear noise so its a reallll head scratcher. Noise has been there since install. 300 6, New clutch kit, original t-case and no PTO usage. FTE TEAM, GO!

 

Did you put in a new driveshaft carrier bearing? When I did that the rubber boot was rubbing on the grease shield and it would make what sounded like front end bearing noise when I was going slow decelerating. I sprayed some lithium grease in it and that cured it. If you could describe the noise in more detail maybe we could narrow it down.

 

The bushing that guides the slip yoke? It is original and I have never heard anything before from it, doesn't mean it isnt binding on a decel angle, but the surfaces are pretty clean and get lube, there is some minor leakage out the seal over time.

The noise is more like a whacking and cracking. Its this strange jarring of something breaking loose, almost as if the teeth of the spurs are partially contacting the collars or the rings are grabbing then spinning on the hubs. Impossible I know, but just to describe the sound. I suppose i'll have to record it.