03 Cobra Exhaust Manifold Steering Mods V2.0 Thanks M_Maker!!

Honestly, I eyeballed it from Jeremi's post on LOD...

http://www.lincolnsofdistinction.org/vbulletin/showpost.php?p=237255&postcount=309

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Just about prepared to do this to my '93 hopefully within the coming weeks. I have all my parts drilled/dimpled/cut w/ the exception of my 2" DD shaft, and the black DD sleeve, which, I am hoping to get an answer from Jeremi over on LOD about the DD sleeve.

Since my K member is dropped, I can see how far my 2" splined sleeve will go on to the rack to lock down, and make sure I drill the dimple into the splined 7" shaft in the correct position. Hopefully by then I'll have exact measurements of the DD sleeve and drill the hole thru my 2" DD shaft stub and start putting all of this together!
 
I know I'm resurrecting an old thread but I'm getting ready to do this in my 98 with Cobra manifold. I just want to be sure looking at the picture of the assembled extension with Flaming River u joint above and the stock shaft below with the 2 inch dd slug underneath. So you put the 2 inch slug into The Flaming River joint which is held in by the shortened black sleeve with a hole through the sleeve into the dimple in the 2 inch slug and then the stock shaft just slides into the black sleeve and that's it. And I know doug is gone but does anybody have the 2 inch the the slug I need or can somebody make 1 for me
 
When I built my set up, I took a shaft from a car in the junk yard. I grabbed the factory black sleeve and the part that attaches to the steering column inside the car. I disassembled the shaft. When you slide the metal tube down the shaft, it will stop when it hits a metal spring tab. You must press in on the tab to release it.

Once you have the sleeve off, I tapped it down the shaft with a hammer to a location like what's in the pictures above. You then need to cut the sleeve shorter and drill a hole in the side to engage that metal tab.

Next, what I did is cut a chunk of the metal DD shaft from the junkyard shaft. I used a grinder to round the ends. Then I drilled a hole all the way through on one end. That hole gets a bolt through it where the factory rag joint used to attach. It has a nut already welded to the black sleeve. Then I used a drill bit to dimple it. My photos above are of the one I made. The dimples are engaged by the set screws on one end of the flaming river joint. I also made my dimples in the splined shaft using a drill bit.

I hope this helps.
 
so what I'm looking at in the picture above with the completed shaft underneath it is the black sleeve already shortened and the shaft that attaches to the column behind it that just slides into the sleeve and is fastened at one end to the dd Slug and that's it.T shaft on the bottom is the factory shaft that attaches to the column just without the clip
 
I JUST assembled my parts yesterday on my car. There's a little bit of trial and error to it, and you'll need a second person to slide the steering shaft in the car while you're under it guiding it. You could almost get away with cutting off an additional .5 inches to ONE end of the splined shaft, because with the angle of everything, it sorta yanks the firewall dust boot over, and stretches it, causing a gap to occur in the foam, and in my opinion, get water in there. I think another half inch (maybe more, would have to have several shafts to attempt this) would bring the angle of the stub shaft, and flaming river joint more towards the center and ease the stress on the firewall boot.

When assembling, I measured my steering rack to find it's "center" and then slipped the coupler over it, and loosened the setscrews all the way out, slid the coupler down as far as I could go, also keeping the splined shaft set screws loose in the coupler. This will let the flaming river joint and splined shaft push further down on the rack stub, and then, I also loosened the set screws holding the splined shaft to the flaming river joint because once you get the breakaway shaft reconnected w/ the steering column you'll play hell trying to get everything together without taking something loose (make sure your column is straight and locked). You'll need to also put the assembled shaft thru the firewall first before attempting to reconnect it to the column's u-joint under the dash. You also dont want any excess spline or stub shaft poking in to the swivel area of the flaming river joint... that will keep it from fully articulating if it runs in to the ends. You'll see what I'm talking about if you play w/ the stuff just mocking it up.

One mistake I made, which I was able to work out, was I went off pictures, and that is hard to do. I pre-drilled all my dimpled holes and pre-cut all my parts, which, ultimately were a little off. I forgot that Jeremi's thread where he showed this in great detail, was for a car w/ the K member spaced down like 5/8 of an inch for the blower! So in reality you could get away with drilling the holes further toward the middle of the splined shaft, and cut just a touch more off the ends. Which, will bring the angle more back straight and, ease the firewall boot stress. I MAY go back and redrill some holes and cut more off the shaft, but I'm fighting my Turbo Chuck motor mounts right now.

I cut down my hollow shaft significantly, and I also cut down the breakaway shaft, because I was literally bottoming out inside the hollow shaft. I cut about 2.5 inches off the breakaway shaft, and well, the hollow shaft, I'm not sure, but it still comes pretty close to the break away joint.

I also learned that when you hammer these parts together... they'll mushroom the ends and not fit together anymore. Whoops. Keep a file on hand. Because if you have to do any sort of trial and error research w/ the stuff... you'll be hammering.

I wish I would have took pictures of what I did, but I was too focused on getting it together. I'll snap pics next time I'm down there working on my car.

DieselDan, I sent you a friend request on FB, I was in need of some assistance since you have installed Chucks mounts already... I need to pick your brain.
 
one last question do I have to bye a set of manifold studs or reuse the exhaust manifold bolts from the mark 8 will they work or is there a set of bolts like Header bolts I should use instead
 
the1andonlyGR81 said:
one last question do I have to bye a set of manifold studs or reuse the exhaust manifold bolts from the mark 8 will they work or is there a set of bolts like Header bolts I should use instead
Click to expand...

I was able to reuse all the hardware that was on the Mark. All the nuts came off the drivers side w/ no issue, and all the bolts came off the passenger side without issue. I reused them all, adding a tiny bit of antiseize to them before reinstalling.

I bought all new studs just in case, because I heard that modulars have a tendency to have the exhaust studs come out or rust and break, but, even though my car was originally from Michigan, and lived 90% of its life in Ohio, they came out w/ no trouble.
 
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