It seems that recently there are several new owners here. There is PLENTY of information on the axle bolt upgrade that you can search and read up on and I don't want to repeat that here. The "news" is that it is VERY important that ALL GTs - regardless if they are garage queens, track machines, or anything in between, need to have the axle bolt upgrade performed. The consequence of NOT doing the upgrade is that you risk that the bolts break and the halfshaft will pull out of the transaxle. You will dump a lot of transaxle fluid and the other end of the halfshaft, as it is still connected to the hub/wheel, will flop around - potentially violently until the car comes to a stop. Scaring you? Good, that's my intention. GET THE UPGRADE DONE.
We have a ~6,000 mi late VIN GT in the shop for service/upgrades. New-ish owner had no confirmation from seller regarding axle bolts. Inspecting the 6 OUTER bolts that connect the halfshaft to the transaxle flange, we can see only a single torque confirmation paint line on each bolt and all are aligned. The paint marks are white on this car but we've seen red, orange, blue, etc. marks on other cars. We decided that we needed to disassemble the coupler to check to see if the inner bolt/washer upgrade had been performed. We've only done the passenger side so far. Inside the flange, we found the head of one OEM Allen bolt sheared off and bouncing around inside the coupler. Checking the remaining bolt, the head was hanging on by half a thread and came off in our hand. Yikes! This was an accident waiting to happen... and it was going to happen soon.
How can you know if the axle bolt upgrade has been performed?
1. You can ask your Ford dealer to print an Oasis report based on your VIN. If a Ford dealer performed the update it will be documented on the Oasis report. Or,
2. Visually inspect the 6 outer bolts at the flange that joins the halfshaft to the transaxle.
2a. If these outer bolts are black 12-point bolts, then your car has the Accufab upgrade kit installed and you are good.
2b. If your car has OEM silver Allen bolts, carefully inspect the paint line on each bolt to see if the lines are aligned. You want to see evidence that those bolts have been removed/replaced. If you cannot find any evidence that the bolts have been replaced, you need to dis-assemble the coupler to look inside.
3. Inside, you will see two bolts. If these bolts are black Allen head bolts, you need to perform the upgrade. However, if the bolts are hex-head and recessed into a spacer, then your car has the upgrade.
Note1: The outer bolts are Torque to Yield (TTY) bolts and technically should be discarded and new bolts should be used to re-assemble the flange. The kit will come with new outer bolts but if you discovered the update has already been perfomed by looking inside, you should probably order new outer bolts for re-assembly.
Note2: Many cars will have transaxle fluid inside the coupler. This should not happen but is relatively common. There is a GT-specific Technical Service Bulletin 06-23-08 that should be performed prior to re-assembly.
DON'T make the mistake of thinking that you baby the car and it may not need this upgrade. ALL 2005-2006 GT's should have this upgrade performed as ALL are susceptible to the bolt failure.
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