Day 9:
We went back to the shop on Sunday (weekend before Christmas), the day after we put the engine in but the energy just wasn't on our side that day. Basically we just cleaned up the area and put the old engine in the crate so we could return it and get the $800 core charge return.
Our next opportunity was the following Saturday, the day after Christmas. We started on the bottom side with the flex plate and starter along with a few misc. connectors/hangers. We returned on Sunday to install the passenger side exh manifold and basically piddled. We still didn't have the motivation this weekend to make much progress and was trying to recoup from Christmas and the amount of work up to this point. I believe we were starting to feel burned out. Truth be known, the three days following installing the engine, we only accomplished a days worth of work. With this Jeb Bush style of low energy ;) let's consider these three days as Day 9.
Day 10:
Thursday, December 31st, New Years Eve, and most importantly Toni's Birthday. Yes, out of all the things we could do on her birthday, Toni's request was to work on the engine.
Energy was back on our side. Instead of working on the underside, we attacked the intake manifold so we could see progress and keep us motivated. Amazingly, everything just fell into place that day. It was fascinating to see the transformation of the top end coming together. And yes, we installed a new knock sensor under the manifold without using an impact wrench.
Toni, the one that reads instructions, found on the paperwork a website with the service manuals available at www.motorcraftservice.com. By registering at this site, we were redirected to a website with the service manuals that could be purchased for hundreds of dollars or the option we chose was to "rent" the online version for a month for a small fee around $20 (a 3 day subscription was also available for a few bucks). The service manual was specifically for the F53 and gave us step by step instruction including the critical torque specs. This is a good resource for future needs. And those bright yellow Accel ignition coils are so pretty. They look Super!
