Been working on getting the engine lined up with the transmission off and on. I am a one man show except for my 11 year old son so its been difficult to say the least. So I decided to take a break while I thought about how I could simultaneously push the engine forward, lower it and line it up. Quite honestly I had been avoiding it for a couple of weeks and then my new bumper came in from Dark Crow Designs which gave me the extra motivation I needed to figure this out. The solution ended up being a simple one. I wedged a 2x4 at an angle in front of the truck and as the engine was lowered, it pushed itself forward. Load leveler helped me position it perfectly. So glad this is behind me!

Now where did I put those bell housing bolts? ��


New bumper from Dark Crow Designs.

My way of man handling the engine in place.

Near perfect alignment!

 

Got 10 bolts in plus the flex plate to engine bolts. Got 4 more to go then will do the engine mounts. Took a break and painted the bumpers with Durabak. Can’t wait to get these things mounted!!

Prepping for paint

Final coat

Close up of the surface

 

Updated my cost spreadsheet. Exceeded $13k! Is this a disease or an addiction?

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets...sf0/edit#gid=0

 

I like it! I will warn you though, Durabak fades bad in the sun in just about 4 months. If you spray some good clear coat on it now it'll last at least a couple years before fading, makes it clean better too. I figure you want it to stay black and look well.

 

Thanks for the tip! I added the UV inhibitor to the batch so hopefully that will help. Florida sun is brutal.

 

This thing is kicking my @ss. Got the engine in and hooked up the exhaust. All but 4 of the transmission to engine bolts are in. I went to put in the engine mounts but found out the manifold on the driver side gets in the way of the top engine mount bolt. To make matters worse, I mislabeled my bolts for the engine mounts. I figure I need to loosen the manifold in order to put the engine mount in. Anyone know the proper size for the top engine mount bolt?

Got close to throwing wrenches and decided to take a break and use up the rest of the durabak.

Anyone have an idea about what bolt size goes in here?

Side project to help me calm down.


Should be a good match for the bumpers.

 

Still working on getting the engine mounts in place. Because I stuck the engine in with exhaust headers, I have little room to work with to bolt this thing up. Lost the bolts somewhere in the frame. $&%#*#&*!! Found a good diagram on RImmerBros which shows the bolt size so it is off to home depot to see what I can find.

 

It was a difficult decision but I decided to get have the engine finished up by British 4x4 in Jacksonville. The engine is married to the transmission but due to my lack of experience I did things out of sequence which made it tough to finish this thing properly.

Good news is now I can focus on the important things like new tires and the bumper!

Towing to a real mechanic!

 

Wow! I have been following along for quite some time and this is an interesting turn. At first your enthusiasm and confidence made me second guess having a shop install my rebuilt engine, I was thinking "I could have done this". However, I think I would have ended up in your same shoes or stalling out. I think you did the right thing and I am sure that you learned a lot doing it up this far.

 

Yeah it was hard to do but I put so many things on out of sequence I would have had to pull them off but in order to put them on the right way. You add that to the fact that I did not organize my fasteners well just left me in a bad position.

i did learn a lot though. I had fun pulling it apart and assembling the engine. Just getting it all hooked back up has been more than I expected. Should have it back next week though and I am looking forward to driving it!!