Father/Son 66 Coupe Restomod

Now that the engine is in, we back to moving towards our goal of "Stop, Go, Steer". Started with steering. Since we had new suspension in the front, we also put new tie rods on, and added a Borgeson Power Steering box. To do that, we needed to cut down the steering column, and use a new, short Borgeson shaft, along with a Borgeson Rag Joint. We also added a lower column bearing setup from Mustang Steve to keep things stable and tight and smooth.

Here's a couple pics. You can see the hydroboost and Hydraulic clutch master being dry fitted in these, but we'll get more detail on them later:





Oh, here's a pic showing that the Borgeson box didn't exactly center itself in the firewall hole. This was not an issue with the firewall hole, but it caused me to have to jigger a bit with the column bracket plate you see in this pic to get it to fit to the firewall after the column was hooked up to the steering box.

A little more detail on the Hydraulic clutch and Hydroboost.

The hydraulic clutch is a slave setup from Daze. I originally used the master from Daze also, but I didn't like the plastic reservoir setup, so I replaced the master with this: http://www.summitracing.com/parts/WIL-260-11972. It's got a 13/16 bore and 1.4" stroke, so plenty of fluid volume to operate the clutch slave. You can see it tucked in here under the hydroboost, braided steel line to the slave:



The Hydroboost and master cylinder were off of a 2000 mustang, picked up last summer at Carlisle. The hydroboost had its own challenges, and I fiddled with a few different scenarios to get it where I wanted it.

I originally cut down the bracket that was on the hydroboost and drilled it so it would be bolted in by the firewall bolts that hold the pedal support to the firewall. However, since it held the hyrdroboost at an upward angle, it didn't line up with the brake pedal pin. Some folks have moved it up on the firewall but I didn't, instead I got a flat bracket from Tallon hydraulics to mount it level.

Of course, now that it was level, it interfered with the Hydraulic clutch master. To resolve that, we rotated (clocked it) so that there was room for the clutch master. To do that, I had to grind the notch out of the Tallon bracket so it would rotate.

Then, with it rotated, the brake master was no longer level. To resolve that I decided to go with a remote brake reservoir. I got my hands on a Mercury Villager master and remote reservoir, but the master would have needed massaging to fit, so I decided to use the remote reservoir with the Mustang hydroboost master.

I was a bit concerned that the brake master might have clearance issues with the shock tower, but after fitting everything, it has a sold 1/2" of clearance without being tilted upward, so yeehah!

Ultimately, I decided I didn't like the villager plastic reservoir setup either, so I ordered some master cylinder remote billet reservoir nipples from Lodestone Billetworks. Then we ordered a billet CNC remote reservoir setup.

Here's some pics of the whole setup. Power steering hoses still aren't hooked up yet, and we're going to replace the black rubber remote reservoir lines with braided lines, but you get the idea. In this first pic, you can see the hydroboost setup, with the hydraulic clutch master, and the borgeson box, all tucked in to that small amount on real estate in the corner of the engine bay. Also, just lying there is the proportioning valve/distribution block for the brakes, which has since been installed along with all the brake lines, (but I need to get some pics of that):



Here's an overall look at the engine bay, with the remote reservoirs installed and plumbed temporarily with black rubber hoses:



And, here's a pic of the clutch and hydroboost pushrods poking through on the inside of the firewall, waiting for pedal installation:

Yeah, Dieslman. I'm really grateful you chimed in on this thread and let me know those adapters exist.

The whole things seems a bit weird to me. When I first contacted them months ago they told me not to worry, they won't bind, no problems. Then when I contacted them after your post, it took a couple weeks to get a good response from them. I emailed them several times and left voicemails.

Then they finally respond with "no problem, we'll send them right out", which they did. An invoice for 0$ was included, and it stated that they were left out of the kit "unintentionally" as if they should have been included. The guy did ask me for my invoice from when I ordered the subframe kit to confirm I had purchased it from them before he sent them, so maybe that's why they didn't charge me.

I don't know, they don't seem to be trying too hard from a customer services standpoint. When I ordered the mini-subframe, I also ordered a 1" sway bar from them for the front/ They sent me one for the rear. I had to return that and wait for them to receive it and send me the correct one. They did pay for shipping both ways so props for that. It's a good thing I wasn't waiting urgently for the sway bar.

So, I have mixed feelings. In the end, the kit seems really nice, and they did get things ironed out, although it took more time and effort than it probably should have.

Bob