BA XT mk2 Turbo Wagon Conversion

[espoig]

Deadly thread mate, should be a weapon when its done

[TurboWagoon]

 

 

[TurboWagoon]

Thought I'd share a bit more info on the turbo wagon conversion for yall.

 

This time I thought I'd mention the driveline issues I came across in getting the ute bits to work in the wagon.

 

I got a fair bit of wierd advice on all the forums and I didn't really have any solid advice to go off so I just had to figure it out as I went along.

 

First thing is the parts list. My donor ute had the old T5 5speed manual, 2 piece tailshaft and an m86 LSD.

 

So obviously the engine and gearbox bolted straight up to the wagon without any issues. The diff also slotted straight into its home no problems.

 

The main thing to get right is the tail shaft. As I'll expllain below, the tailshaft won't bolt straight in for a couple of reasons. Firstly the utes are longer than the wagons so the tailshaft is way to long. Second thing is that the utes were fitted with a 2 piece tail shaft.

 

So far as I can tell the wagons only come fitted with a solid (1 piece) tailshaft and m78 diff. This means that the tailshaft has the wrong rear uni configuration and wont bolt directly up to the LSD as the diff pinion flange assembly / tailshaft rear CV coupling are different.

 

I toyed with the idea of keeping the wagon tailshaft and getting the rear CV coupling cut off the ute diff and welded onto the wagon tailshaft. However in Ford's infinite wisdom they actually provide the bolt holes for the centre shaft bearing in the floor pan of the wagons, which means that you can use the 2 piece shaft if you want. The only thing to do to mount the centre bearing is to tap some thread in the blank holes in the floor pan and you can bolt the centre bearing assembly straight up. Petty cool hey.

 

In terms of the tailshaft length, I guess it will depend on which gearbox you use (T5 or T56) and which diff you use (m78 or m86) as to the exact amount to cut off the tailshaft.

 

Ultimately, the combo I went with (T5, m68 LSD, 2 piece tailshaft) meant that I had to get the tailshaft shortened by 190mm (overall length) which was cut out of the rear section of the tailshaft.

 

To get the measurement I pretty much just slid the tailshaft into the gearbox, bolted up the centre bearing and then held the rear section of the shaft up and took a measurement with the diff sitting at 'normal' ride height (which for my car is about 55 - 60mm lower than stock). Then just put a mark on the tailshaft where the face of the diff pinion flange intersected with the tailshaft and that was it. As I didn't have any other advice to go off I'd really only find out whether my measurement was any good once I had the tailshaft bolted in and it took it for it's first drive.

 

So it all worked out in the end. Seems the magic 190mm was pretty much spot on as I havn't had any issues with the tailshaft or diff since the conversion.

 

P.s. for the chopping I used Hardy Spicer in Newcastle. I delivered it to them first thing in the morning and got it back that arvo, so pretty good service.

 

 

Service repair manual extract:

 

Ute tailshaft is left of picture (black) , wagon tailshaft is right of picture (silver)

 

Diff info. Most of the sticker due to the tie down straps we used to get the ute home.

[TurboWagoon]

Oh, the only other thing with the driveline that I came across recently was that utes never came out with a centre bump stop like the wagons did.

 

To be honest I didn't even notice when I was removing the diff/tailshaft from the ute and installing it into the wagon. But I recently had a bit of an incident where my rear CV bolts came a little loose so when I got under the car to fix that problem I noticed that the bump stop above the diff had copped a few hits. I knew this cause the bump stop was filthy before the conversion but afterwards, the bump stop was black and had heaps of scores in it and a few cracks.

 

I knew that when I lowered the car the suspension travel was never going to be brilliant, so I just assumed that my car was just hitting the bump stops so often because it was so low.

 

But I think that the povo pack m78 diffs that come standard on the wagons are physically a fair bit smaller in size than the m86 LSD that came with the ute. So im guessing that the middle bump stop had more travel before it hit on the top of the old (small) diff than it did on the new (larger) diff.

 

As you can see in the below image, the LSD only had about 30mm travel before hitting the bump stop, but the bump stops that are mounted to the chassis and hit the diff axles still had about 60-70mm travel before they hit anything.

 

So I took the centre bump stop out, went for a spirited drive and....well....yeah, it rides waaaaaaaaaaaaaaay better. I've actually got rear suspension travel again and it's way comfier than it was.

 

Oh and once again, I tried for ages to find out what bump stop configuration was fitted to each model but came up empty handed.

 

After a few days of trawling the net and finding sweet FA, I went back to my trusty online repair manual, which, well you guessed it.....confirmed my suspicions. The utes never had a centre bump stop.

 

I think there's some kind of lesson to be learnt here......

 

https://cardiagn.com/03-05-ford-falcon-ba-rear-suspension-beam-axle/

 

Bump stop before removal.

 

 

See number 27!

Edited 07/12/18 10:49 PM by TurboWagoon

[dunkin_biscuit]

Hey man, how are you finding the wagon after a few years? Do you still have it?

[TurboWagoon]

Hey mate. Wagon is still going well. I feel victim to the blocked turbo oil feed line so my turbo died earlier this year. I should have changed the line when I changed the engines so it's really my fault cause it is a well known issue that I could have avoided. Apart from that the car is still going strong and I still love driving it. Are you looking to do a turbo wagon as well?

[dunkin_biscuit]

PM'd you dude