Ford Motorsport T-5 V8 Transmission Installation Kit (M-7100-C)

Posted On July 15, 2024

This is both a very cool find and an interesting piece of Ford Motorsport parts history. Thanks to my friend Tom, I came to purchase this T-5 Transmission Installation Kit. Only the night before I got this I had mentioned to Tom that I was considering a manual transmission swap on my 1993 Mustang. I know. I know. That’s probably a crazy idea for an all original car. I don’t know that I would ever actually go through with such a conversion. But, the thought has entered my mind several times throughout my ownership.

He spotted this kit at the 2024 Carlisle Ford Nationals swap meet. I could not pass this up. Even if I don’t do the conversion, I am sure that I could find a new home for this kit. For now, I thought the best thing to do with it would be to open it up and document its contents.

This is an NOS version of the kit intended for the 1979-86 Mustang and Capri. All parts are in the box. It is amazing that this kit in its original box still exists over 30 years after it was produced.

This particular kit looks to have been assembled and packaged in March of 1993 based on the March 7, 1993 Detroit Free Press newspaper found inside. Newspaper was used as packing material. Interestingly, this date is very close to the build date of my triple white. You might rememeber that inside my triple white I found other Detroit Free Press newspaper which, in that case, was dated March 11, 1993.

Wanting to dig a little deeper into the history of this, I searched my literature archive and was surprised to see that I still had a Racer Walsh parts catalog from 1990. This kit was listed in that catalog for $149.

Kit Contents

Looking at the list of parts included in the kit, it looks like there were two versions of the kit; one for “Long Throw” transmissions and one for “Short Throw” transmissions. Based on the parts in the kit that I have, it looks like it is the “Short Throw” version. Below is a list of the parts included in the instructions. The speedometer gear is not included in this list even though there is one included in the kit. This must be because there are several variations of the gear based on rear-axle ratio and tire diameter so there are a variety of different part numbers for it.

Once opened, I found the included parts all in great condition. The metal parts for the tunnel patch and the console front bracket do have a little oxidation.

There are three pages that are the Instructions.

More to come

There are a bunch more parts which I would need to do the actual swap including the T-5 transmission itself and the pedal assembly and probably a bunch more parts. I have to create that parts list and start looking for those. Please feel free to share any parts needed, parts lists or experiences with transmission swaps in the comments.