Sunday, March 31, 2013

1st Engine & Tranny fit

Last summer (June 2012) we were able to do the first installation of the engine and transmission. I wanted to get the engine and tranny in to see how they fit, and where I would be able to route all of the fuel, brake, and tranny cooler lines, along with all of the other plumbing. My plan was to do a first fit, make the modifications, pull the engine and tranny back out, paint the aluminum engine bay panels, permanently rivet them in, and then install the engine and tranny for real.

(Click photos to enlarge).
It was easiest to move the tranny around on a furniture dolly with padding.

Bolting the tranny up to the engine.


Wheeled the engine shipping crate and the tranny dolly as close to the car as possible before the big lift.

Engine finally free of the shipping crate.

Bolting the motor mounts on.

Finally getting the engine and tranny in.

Of course, this stuff doesn't go smoothly on the first try. Here's a short video of the process sped up 4X. There's lots of checking for interference, and jacking the car up off of the chassis dolly before the engine and tranny finally clear the frame. But now we've got an idea of where the tranny interferes with the frame and what modifications need to be made. After the changes, the engine and tranny should go in much smoother the second time around.