Best way to install engine and trannie?

BlackRat

Well-known member
Joined
Mar 27, 2008
Messages
196
I will be installing my engine and TKO600 trannie as a unit shortly and am trying to determine the best jack stand position and hoist position for easily setting it in. In the past I have pulled the drivers side wheel and gone in fron the side but that takes a fair amount of jacking the motor and trannie around and I have scratched the engine bay paint and oil pan doing it this way. Is there a prefered or "easier" method and angle of attack? Jack stand positions? Floor jack? Hoist going in from front or side?

Thanks
Wade
 
From the front, tape some foam around your cherry picker where it may hit the front to keep it from damaging the bumper/paint. Make sure you have your picker extended enough to get the engine in place, otehrwise you'll have to rest tne engine and trans on jacks and move the boom later.

I tilt the engine and tranny in and then roll a trolley jack under the tranny pan to guide it and that way it won't scrape the ground. It's best to have a helper handy.
 
Cool thanks! Yeah I plan on having a helper this time even ifit is the wife. Last time I did it by myself because I was on vacation and everyone else was working. I got impatient and struggled more than I needed to.

Wade
 
Make sure you don't extend your cherry picker so far it's "front" heavy and might tip. Points off for getting the engine/tranny over the front and having it tip and drop the whole thing on the nose.:suicide:
 
If your cherry picker tips, it's too small :) And you can always have a helper stand on it :)
 
Make sure you don't extend your cherry picker so far it's "front" heavy and might tip. Points off for getting the engine/tranny over the front and having it tip and drop the whole thing on the nose.:suicide:



Gee thanks Tim..... Not like I don't have enough to worrry about.....:banghead::wink:



As soon as I tightened the last bolt on the oil pan I started worring if I for got something........:banghead::eek:


Wade
 
Wade, I have done engine in/out about 4-5 times on my '72 here, and it's only a SBC, and having no more than say 16" off the ground with all wheels off, and a HUGE cherry picker with some 5' of boom on it, I find it still nearly mpossible to do engine/tranny as an assy all at once....with a BB I honestly think it's more problems than it's worth....far easier to do the bellhousing bolts from underneath or slip the tranny in after the nasty clutch mess is done....I have done maybe seems like 50 engine jobs over the decades....and so it seems that is the much easier way, I don't even have a 'slider bar' to balance thee engine back and forth, I just hang it on a tilt via the chain and if the balance is right, bolt the damn thng down with minimal efforts.....

even on much larger cars/trucks, I can not for the life of me see trying to manipulate that 10' long tranny over the car body, then keep it off the ground enoug to slide the POS back enough to flop the engine down lo enough without removing the cross support/rad/a-c cond, etc.....

everyone got an opinion, but without a lift/major garage I dunno how else you can reasonably do it.....:trumpet::crutches:that's my opinion and I sticking to it.....

:hi::sweat:
 
Thanks Gene. Funny you say this now as I was just thinking the same thing last night while cleaning the engine bay. Question, when you get the engine in how do you support the back of it while preparing to install the trannie? Floor jack?

Sense I am going to try and assemble all the accesories and such I beleive I am going to put the engine and the trannie in seperately.

Thanks
Wade
 
Thanks Gene. Funny you say this now as I was just thinking the same thing last night while cleaning the engine bay. Question, when you get the engine in how do you support the back of it while preparing to install the trannie? Floor jack?

Sense I am going to try and assemble all the accesories and such I beleive I am going to put the engine and the trannie in seperately.

Thanks
Wade[/QUOTE

Everyone got an opinion, IMO....leave assessories/mounts/belts off, except harmonica balancer/pulleys and fly/flex plates.....I done clutches/PPs both ways, flop engine on the mounts, and let it sag a bit, not an issue in fact...take dizzy cap off though....not sure on a BB is it hits an HEI or not...never owned a BB vette, but the tranny crap is Idendical wether BB or SB, so that not the issue.....I never use any 'inspection cover' on my installs, and with a stick shift I find to leave the pplate loose enough to just slip the disc around, slip the tranny home snug it down, then tighten hell outta the PP bolts and then the tranny mount bolts, obviously the bhousing is secure before that....but then again, I"M a lazy SOB and I find battling one issue at a time is easier than storming the mountain.....

went to see the ALAMO the other day, 189 guys killed some 1600 men in Santanas' army.....surely we lost, but look at the kill ratio.....better than 8-1....sorta the same thing with your project....kill it one at a time, or sure it will kill you.....
 
I did this all by myself, the "buddy" who was supposed to help me that day never showed up.... I had the cherry picker, I had beer, I had a plan..... I used a lot of nylon rope to keep it from moving. I also used a nylon rope under the car to bull the tranny tail down and back... went in smooth...

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Maybe I developed a abrasive personality over the past seven years here in the heat.... dunno.... :nuts::nuts:
 
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