well today was a good day, the days before that sucked! Thursday, buddy dropped the new/used motor off. i had spent about 2 hours removing stuff that was not needed, and swapping exhaust manifolds (more on that later). the 2 hours after that, i tried to get the motor in the truck, no luck. that, combind with the plate that is between the motor and trains always wanting to fall off started to realy piss me off
. so i walked away from it for the night. came back Saturday night, yanked the motor out and staked the dowel pins so the plate wouldn't fall off. i thought it was a great idea (more on that one as well later). 10 mins later the motor was in. go figure! but a new problem surfaced. when i put the plate on, i was rushing, and not paying attention on what i was doing, put it on backwards! other words, starter hole was on the wrong side!
i didn't want to pull the motor back out, so here i am under the truck with a pry bar trying to get the plate off to flip it around. 15 mins later, mission accomplished. now i go about lining the torque converter up to the flywheel. it was off by maybe a 1/8th of a inch. there was another 30 mins of my life i will never get back! now on to bolting the bell housing. for what ever reason, one side was flush, while the other side had a gap about 1/4 of a inch. i don't know if the dowels on the motor where bent a bit, or what. but what should have been a 45 min job at the most took 4 hours! i had to get one started, but not tight, then get the ones above and below started, but not tight. then tighten them gradually so i didn't break either the block or bell housing. now that the b.s. work was done, the top half would fly along. until i noticed that the exhaust manifold gasket some how fubard itself when i was putting it on. piss on it! i will change that when i hear it run! i was at buddy's place until about 3 am last night (good thing i work midnight shift and had last night off) finishing it. i didn't want to start it last night just in case something happened (like what could happen, its been such smooth sailing so far.......right?), so today i went back there to see if it would come to life. guess what? IT STARTED! (do the happy dance, do the happy dance
). the one manifold gasket is leaking, i will have to replace that, but the sumbitch runs, and thats all i care about! i will be so happy when i have this thing sold! i had a easier time putting the big block in my 81 capri then this thing!!!!! thanks for all your help guys, i appreciate it.