Progress on the T-Bird

Well after the long dry spell I’m finally making good progress on getting the T-Bird back to race ready. It’s been down for over 16 months. I’ve replaced the flex plate, Glide Case and Bell housing, installed an external trans cooling pump, replaced all the fuel lines, repacked the wheel bearings, replaced the seat belts, and four new Hoosiers. Friday night we hit the gas pedal three or four times and the old Ford lit right off! I added some trans fluid and I shifted through all the gears and it moved under its own power!

I’m quite proud of myself as I have never built a glide before. It wasn’t as bad as I thought it would be. Hoping to get out to Maryland for a test and tune soon!

Well, after over 18 months of not making a pass, I finally made it to the test and tune at Maryland
International raceway on Sunday May 7,2023. New Reid case, bell housing, Meziere Billet flex plate, starter, New Belts, 4 new Hoosiers. Freshened Meziere water pump. New AN fuel lines, filters, needle and seats. I went over everything.

So I drove the car around the pits, warmed up the trans, converter, and rear and waited to be called to the lanes. We get called up and I’ll have to admit, I was pretty nervous, as I’ve never assembled a glide before.
I get in the water box, do a nice long burn out to break in the new slicks. I told my son I was going to
Take the light and shut it down at the 1/8 mile.

I stage hit the trans brake, hit the tree. I had a .015 light, the car shifted flawlessly and I was rolling pretty good. Just as I was letting out of the gas it started to vibrate badly, and it shut off. Preliminary it looks bad. Probably dropped a valve, #5 plug was mashed, and the exhaust valve had a lot of lash. I had water in the oil.

This is probably gonna get ugly. I know it’s part of it, but it still sucks.

Damn that sucks. Hopefully it’s not too bad.

cool40 wrote:Damn that sucks. Hopefully it’s not too bad.

X2!!

t-bird racer wrote:Well, after over 18 months of not making a pass, I finally made it to the test and tune at Maryland
International raceway on Sunday May 7,2023. New Reid case, bell housing, Meziere Billet flex plate, starter, New Belts, 4 new Hoosiers. Freshened Meziere water pump. New AN fuel lines, filters, needle and seats. I went over everything.

So I drove the car around the pits, warmed up the trans, converter, and rear and waited to be called to the lanes. We get called up and I’ll have to admit, I was pretty nervous, as I’ve never assembled a glide before.
I get in the water box, do a nice long burn out to break in the new slicks. I told my son I was going to
Take the light and shut it down at the 1/8 mile.

I stage hit the trans brake, hit the tree. I had a .015 light, the car shifted flawlessly and I was rolling pretty good. Just as I was letting out of the gas it started to vibrate badly, and it shut off. Preliminary it looks bad. Probably dropped a valve, #5 plug was mashed, and the exhaust valve had a lot of lash. I had water in the oil.

This is probably gonna get ugly. I know it’s part of it, but it still sucks.

Is this the 466 that made 787 Horsepower?

Sorry to hear that. The vibration bit makes me think a rod or crankshaft failure may have started the problem to the valve breaking. I take it cylinder number one plug and lash is OK?

Hope the carnage is not too bad.

No. That was the 521. The #5 exhaust valve lash was way off, and the plug was smashed all to heck.