Put the Engine and Transmission Back In

So, we got a tip from Pawpaw about bolting the engine and transmission together and putting them into the car in one piece.  That sounded good so we decided to try it since we'd both struggled lining up bell housing bolts to mounted engines on other jobs.  As it turns out it was the torque converter that drove us nuts today.  It wasn't sitting into the transmission all the way which made it impossible to fit the transmission and engine together.  After the 4th try, we finally got that figured out and they fit right together.

Then we figured we'd try to drop it in there.  This actually went very smooth.

The idea was to have a pretty steep angle.  It seems odd hanging from the hoist like that, but once you drop it in and begin lowering it, you "catch" the transmission with a floor jack and it all starts to level out.  The transmission mount bracket went in like a snap and the motor mount bolts weren't much trouble either.  A little wiggling was all it took.

Today cost: $0

Total project cost: $3113.67

Engine reassembly finished

Before:

After:

So, the timing set we bought from RockAuto.com... the gear on the crank shaft was very slightly bigger than the old one so the timing cover wouldn't fit on.  Real dumb.  So, we just put the old one back.  I'll have to go to the site and leave a lousy review.  Also, we nearly destroyed the timing cover seal when some idiot (me) put it on backward and had to take it back off.  Hope it doesn't leak!

Looks like a real engine again huh?

Today cost: $0

Total project cost: $3113.67 

Engine reassembly

So, we did buy the wrong bearings.  But that's ok, we ordered the right ones according to what was in there and reassembled the engine.

I didn't take enough pictures apparently, but the cleaned up rods went back in with no real trouble. Fresh rings, new bearings... It'll probably work.  Eli sprayed some Ford blue high temperature paint on it to make it look pretty.

Also, we ordered some new brake lines at some point.  CJPonyParts.com put them on backorder for us so we had to wait a while, but they came in and we replaced the long line running from the front to the back.  This clears the way for us to put the engine and transmission back in once the engine assembly is wrapped up.  Upon further inspection, we may be able to reuse some of the other brake lines.  They don't look bad at all.  The long one had some rust/corrosion at the rear so, we decided it was best to yank it out.

This day (pre-bent brake lines) cost: $112.99

Total project cost: $3113.67