The Bang-Shift Cougar is Back! | Roadkill Garage | MotorTrend

the car we're dealing with here is the bang shift cougar a 1967 Mercury Cougar that was in the very first episode of roadkill garage and you know what this is the very first episode of season six so it's been five years since we originally put this together and there's a whole backstory of me buying the car and then getting it running and then trading it off to Steve but what's important is that it initially had a 351 Cleveland in it it now has a Ford Windsor 302 based 363 cubic inch stroker in it and most importantly the four speed that makes it the bang shift cougar the problem is it doesn't Bank shift anymore because the clutch slips really badly and we think that that's because of an oil leak at the back of the engine and this engine has leaked oil out of the back forever it dates all the way to when Mike Finnegan and I drove a Ford Ranchero all the way to Alaska with this engine in it and it leaked then and then it leaked when dulcich rebuilt it and we were testing it on the engine Masters show and then surprise it leaked again then when we actually installed it in this car and so the first thing we're going to do is rip the top loader four speed out of the car so that we can see what clutch disc we need and perhaps even find the source of that endless oil leak so that we can fix that as well [Music] that was it everyone's got this transmission ready to come out wow there's a bunch of dog hair and rat poop in here no way are you ready to have it out I think we'll come right out oh it's coming right out okay ready for down yeah at this point we have gravity working Target management oh oil there we go all right this is what makes this entire car great the cougar is nothing without the top loader no [Music] the bell housing is off right this clutch is completely fried that is going to be it that is roasted that is char broiled this is the clutch disc out of the cougar and it is absolutely the most destroyed thing I've ever seen for a clutch disc that has a maybe 50 miles on it that is wrecked one thing it is not though is oily we thought it was probably saturated with oil from the leak at the back of the engine and it isn't so why is it ruined probably because we never broke it in in standard roadkill fashion we installed it and we went out and did burnouts for your viewing pleasure that probably wrecked that thing completely because that's unbelievable but we still do have an incredible oil leak and we've been investigating hardcore under there to see what it is this is the mid plate that goes between the bell housing and the back of the engine and by looking at it we can see really carefully some witness marks of oil leaks on this thing and it's either coming from the cam plug which is about right here on the back of the engine or from the oil pan gasket immediately at the back of the engine right under the rear main seal doesn't seem to be the seal itself it's one piece seal would be be shocked if that's what it was so what we're going to do is something fairly Mickey Mouse but also kind of Genius we're going to fill the engine with automatic transmission fluid which is really just a very very light oil and we're going to see if we can actually watch it dripping out of the bottom of that oil pan seal and if it's not it's probably the cam plug foreign it's pouring out of the bolt hole in the crankshaft you can put a bolt in there okay so we know it's well above that point okay no glistening so now I'm waiting [Music] the oil leak investigation is complete and sure enough it is leaking out of this oil pan gasket seal at the back of the engine it's not the rear main seal this aftermarket pan is just not squishing the seal at the back enough and it's dripping out of there so I think what we're going to do is drop the pan at the back clean it all up in there and smudge some RTP in it and put it back together which is not the right way to do it but it's the roadkill garage where you do it it'll be good enough [Music] now I probably should have been concentrating on some Mechanicals but check out the sweet interior I had a chance to put the upholstery kit on the seats and put the carpet in there's a bunch more work to do to get it perfect the way I want to but that's not the important Point here the thing I need to do to make this car run and drive is fix the braking system now this is the master cylinder I got for it this is made for front disc brakes so it doesn't have a residual pressure valve in the front brake Port so that's going to fix the problem because the residual pressure valve for a drum brake setup will cause a drag with the disc brakes and it's brand new not 50 years old so we're going to be putting that in in the back we're just going to rebuild the rear drum brakes I've got new shoes I've got new wheel cylinders we have a spring kit and I've got new brake drums we're going to check all the lines below them out make sure they're all clear and then hopefully get this thing started up and hit the road well Steve's handling the master cylinder I've been assigned to rebuild the rear brakes here's some like Antiquated wrenching information for you primary and secondary brake drum shoes these days they often use the same length of lining on both the front and the rear or primary and secondary shoe but you'll notice that some nuts like this AC Delco set have a longer lining on one than they do on the other now people have argued for many years about which is which I'm going to go by the manual and say short shoe front long shoe rear I got the shoes and springs all on everything's happy there and then I grabbed my brand new brake drum and even with the adjuster all the way in so smallest diameter on the pads I could not get our new brake drum on check this out this caliper is maxed out right there on the inside diameter of that drum and I move over here to this one and it's roughly 3 16 bigger and that's not just because this one's been turned and that one hasn't there's a problem here I don't know if it's an application or if the part's just wrong but I'm going to end up using the old drums they're not too bad [Music] [Music] you're gonna block the motor if you keep doing that once again utter crushing defeat instead of the bank shift cougar this thing's become the clutch eating cougar I had to hit the road and do some other stuff but then dolsich stepped in like a beast he pulled the engine again and installed yet another clutch because we obviously didn't break in that second clutch enough again this time he installed a six-puck drag race clutch that doesn't require as much break in and it also has more pressure to it next he fixed the oil leak that you guessed it was still there he found out that the reason this engine is puked oil ever since it was in The Ranchero years ago was that the gallery plugs the back of the block were never fully tightened he fixed that and then the oil pan and put it all back together in a Solo four day bloody knuckle thrash to bring you what you deserve so without any further excuses we give you the shift cooter [Music] foreign [Music] [Music] all right oh thanks popper [Music] [Music] as you know though the windy Mountain Road is not what the cougar is actually famous for now what is the cougar season for the woods the trees at first the Lang shift the bang shift yeah yeah I'm actually liking this cougar handling I feel like Dan Gurney amazing [Music] [Music] foreign [Music] [Applause] [Music] that's the drive shaft [Music] darnabb [Music] [Music] Ed my eardrums I thought this was supposed to be quiet they're called Mufflers I guess you're right what we'll do is we'll take these top mounting bolts off first yeah gotta be careful this the whole cases crack yeah I know okay the last bolt out of the transmission and the whole corner of the transmission case just hit the deck man this thing is totally destroyed all right drop that thing in Steve I'll hook it on all right coming down somewhere around there okay hold on how about there that's good okay a coil spring can kill you you want the right tools and you want to do it the right way what we're doing here is a little sketchy and I don't recommend it I think that's free now it's free I wonder if this is gonna work like this I guess that's how it works right we're gonna find out yeah [Music] okay you know what now we just slowly and carefully release it you know what the problem is going to be it's going to run out of travel on that thing before it's all the way unloaded that's what I was curious about too yeah all right well we got ourselves into a little bit of a conundrum kind of a pickle isn't it yeah no but I know how to take that apart oh yeah yeah we could fix it with fire ow and with that I've been a do to the coil spring goodbye coil spring I will not miss you [Music] foreign slice what do you think about that Steve look at that [Music] seriously Wiley this is probably one of the best modifications you could do to an old muscle car and that's an overdrive transmission I'm jealous this is a tkx transmission it's a replacement for the old TKO it's brand spanking new in fact this is probably one of the first kits for a Ford application it's from a company called Silver sport transmission they have transmission swap kits not only for this but all kinds of different transmissions in all kinds of classic muscle car applications so it's got a 0.68 overdrive which is going to give me a sweet cruising gear yeah and then one through four is like a close ratio four speed okay this is getting serious transmission installation is going to begin by installing the flywheel and clutch then the bell housing and hopefully we'll swing the transmission and after that I think he goes just like that that's tight I think you got him pretty close with the gun yeah all right Wiley clutch me bro dude this is a pretty aggressive looking little clutch you know when I open the box on this thing I totally freaked out because it looked like it was a 10 and a half and I needed an 11 but then I noticed that every other paddle is longer and shorter so oh yeah so they're actually offset which utilizes more surface area on the flywheel right yeah I just love these paddle clutches man I was burning out regular clutches left and right and then I remember I started using these race clutches and they shift cleaner because there's way less inertia and man they don't burn up you can just pound on them right away so this is good I think this is dosage proof I won't promise you that we maybe the transform now I think it probably is let's find out let me talk about the rear end what I have here is a Ford 9 inch and nothing here comes from the junkyard everything you see is brand new and heavy duty so it's going to be bulletproof with the five-speed transmission and a high horsepower Windsor engine the housings from Curry as is the differential carrier the differential carrier is heavy duty nodular iron it's filled out with the 389 gear set an Ethan true track differential and it's set up for 31 spline axle shafts I knew the 8-inch rear end that was in the car was going to break so I've had this built to last it's got Wilwood disc brakes at each end and I'm going to swing it into the car right now dude that is nine inches of absolute beef yeah it's pretty good so far you're there did you like the jack stand trick yeah it's really good [Music] lower it lower [Music] there we go on the PIN one thing I noticed on these spring plates that they sent us is that they've got two different shock mounting tabs on there the high performance Fords will sometimes have stagger shocks one in the front and one in the back and so this accommodates that it's pretty good okay mine's on pinned now oh wow I like those big slotted mounting bolts yeah me too here comes a drive shaft not even dosage bang shifting can break fortunately Driveline services in Fresno dials Us in fast with this stuff we really appreciate those guys this has 1350 U-joints at both ends and uh it's gonna be beef [Music] oh I slid it in now it won't come out I need a hammer there we go you guys might be puzzling over what exactly I'm doing here so I'm gonna explain it very clearly this thing that looks like a radiator will not cool my engine so I want to put another one in I can't order the correct radiator for a 67 cougar with the small block Ford so I'm gonna take another radiator that's lying around and I'm just gonna make it fit oh yeah the only thing that's really still a mystery to me is whether or not the hood will close I think it will hey what's it hitting don't tell me it's the radiator ah that radiator is way too tall the hood doesn't shut so I'll see if I can find a resolution otherwise it's back to the drawing board okay I don't think that's going anywhere I think it just needs to be zip tied right here at the top [Music] all right so that's the radiator to hood clearance problem solved [Music] [Applause] your eyes 681 681 I don't know if I'm topping that here's the irony loud pipe save lives I'm wearing earplugs that thing is loud now he's gonna cheat and do a brake drag I know but you know what dosage is about to put on a show and go [Applause] [Music] [Applause] he only went about as far as me even cheating to me dragging brakes like that can look fun but it doesn't show the actual power of the car for me the actual Full Throttle burnout for distance no brake drag is the key [Music] and donuts are stupid but fun [Applause] [Music]

Channel: MotorTrend Channel

Views: 342,312

Keywords: motortrend, motor trend, motor trend channel, automotive, auto, roadkill garage, roadkill, roadkill ford, motortrend full episodes, motortrend full episode, automobile, roadkill full episodes, motortrend roadkill, motor trend full episodes, motortrend channel, motortrend channel roadkill, roadkill garage full episodes, roadkill garage general mayhem, roadkill garage episodes

Id: E-xm5oVtQLc

Length: 19min 31sec (1171 seconds)

Published: Sat Apr 29 2023