Automotive Experience
In addition to a vintage vehicle, I also maintain my own personal daily use 2005 Mustang. With its current age and mileage, it has required numerous repairs to keep in on the road. Namely, a timing chain and transmission.
Ford 4.6L 3V engines are notorious for timing chain tensioners failing and shattering the chain guides. Somewhere around 200k miles mine shattered, leaving the chain to erode the timing cover. Here we can see the missing guide (orange) on the top left.
Here we can see the remaining chunks of guide removed from the oil pan and surrounding areas.
The wear in the timing cover from the timing chain slapping, particularly on start up.
The reassembled, and now less clattery, engine.
A long time goal of mine was to eventually replace the stock automatic transmission with a manual one. When the original one failed just before 200k miles. I replaced it with a 6 speed manual from a GT500.
The aftermarket application specific clutch fitted to a replacement stock flywheel. The darker wire loom in frame is also additional wiring to support the new transmission. Most factory wiring could not be used due to an incompatibility in the PCM between manual and automatic hardware. A reflash with custom software on the original PCM allowed minimal additional wiring, namely the reverse light wiring and reverse gear lockout.
The new manual shifter in place of the original automatic. Because of the cars being fitted from the factory with manuals, most of the problem solving came electrically. There were quite a few quirks to resolve in order for the engine to run properly.