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Alright, I finally got around to repairing the hole in the back of the cab and painting said cab. Getting the bed moved took a bit of ingenuity since the chances of getting me and 3 of my friends is the same place at the same time is low. But nothing a cherry picker couldn't resolve. Once that was out of the way, I cut away the problem section, welded in a new patch (not the best but it worked), did a lot of grinding, then paint! I think it came out really nice. Now I have to order metal for engine/trans mounts and figure out how I want to build mounts. This lone act of getting the engine and trans placed is the most worrisome for me. I've never done an engine swap like this. I've done engine swaps where the engine going in is more or less the same as the one going out (1915cc VW engine into a 1600cc VW beetle). After they're in, I should be able to move fairly quickly. Granted there are still a lot of unknowns. ie: fuel delivery, exhaust routing, wiring and ecu, power steering plumbing, radiator... the list goes on. haha. I'm going to lean on some of my local friends to hopefully guide me in fabricating the powertrain mounts. I still want to try to be able to drive it by the end of summer. I'm excited to start on the interior and doing all the finishing details like lights, gauges, bedliner, winch, etc. But that all will have to wait.
moving the bed
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the rust hole in the back of the cab
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section removed and prepped
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new piece welded in
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lots of grinding and paint later! Something about a grinder and some paint? haha
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I did under the cab and the firewall as well. I'll probably do the wheel arches and back of the core support eventually.
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In anticipation of installing the powertrain and building mounts, I decided to piece the powertrain together. I started with bolting on my new clutch assembly that I got from work.
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I had some trouble getting the pilot bearing out of the flywheel but the "pack it with grease to hydraulically move it" trick kind of worked. Well, I wound up accidentally tapping the bearing into the crank, so I had to remove the flywheel :-( . The rest went fairly smoothly. Wound up "sourcing" one of my pressure plate to flywheel bolts from the dodge in the driveway (I knew I kept it around for a reason!).
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I finally fruitlessly tried to get the trans and engine to mate. When it's all on wheels, it's like trying to push two like-poled magnets together. I'll just have to wait for a friend to help me. After that's on, I'll bolt on the tcase, probably scrub down the trans in the driveway, then try to fit it all into the truck! It's getting exciting!
this was as close as I got. :rolleyes:
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In preparation for test fitting the powertrain tomorrow, I decided to install the brake booster and MC, heater box, and power steering box. I want to know what my limits are a little better when lining everything up.
The heater box just bolted back up but the other two gave me a bit more of an issue. The booster is out of a wagoneer and pseudo bolts up. It needs two more holes and I was having awful luck with my drill and my bolt hole alignment. I did my best for the two new holes but I had to enlarge two of them since I missed by a mil or so. Also, for those of you who have done this, how did you switch out push rods? The 715 has a much larger eye and pin on the pedal. I'm thinking it might just be easiest to weld the old eye-ring on the new push rod.
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The power steering box was another animal entirely. I got a unit from a J20 and I wanted to use all 4 mount bolts. I marked where I needed to drill and cut 3 new holes in the frame. They didn't line up the best bust close enough to work. I sleeved it with some pipe and welded it in. Should be pretty stout. I can't wait to get all this truck back on the road and now it's starting to feel kind of like a car agin! :rocker:
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The heater box will come back out later for paint and a new core. I want it there for passenger side clearance.
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That’s some good in field engineering there! Thanks for the pics and keep it going. Gonna be a cool M715.
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This weekend I was able to test fit part of the powertrain but it wasn't without it's hiccups. The first problem was just getting the trans to mate to the engine. Apparently it's a pretty tight fit and it took some convincing to make it work. We tried to get the tcase to bolt to the trans and we discovered that we needed to notch a hole for one of the shift forks. We did that only to discover the bolt pattern on the adapter is wrong. I'm reaching out to Advance Adapters to see what the deal is.
Despite this, I decided to test fit the engine anyways just to see where everything lined up. Shortly after getting it in, it became apparent that the aftermarket headers that came with the engine had to go. They have a loop that goes up and straight into the booster, heater core, and firewall. I'll have to find some OE headers and that's looking to be difficult. After we removed the manifolds, we were able to get a better idea of where things needed to be.
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In order to get the engine back and up a little more, I'm going to have to :massage" the firewall a bit. I also need to remove the old heat shields and trans mounts. After all that, I might get better clearance. The wagoneer booster might still be a problem. I may have to go to a summit/jegs 7" booster to get a little more room. Lastly, it looks like i need to re-position the steering box brace. it's too close to the crank pulley for comfort.
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At least the shifter comes out at and ok point. haha
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I knew that I would have some issues but this was a lot more than expected. I think it's really the tcase issue that's got me the most frustrated. Everything else is normal for shoe-horning a large engine into a place it was never designed to go. The plan for this week is to remove the trans mounts, old tcase mounts, heat shield, steering box brace, and massage the firewall. next weekend I should get a better fit.
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Just looking at the pics makes me grunt. Like caveman seeing fire. :lol:
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I made a little progress last night. After getting into contact with Advance Adapters, I realized that I lost part of the instructions and I did need to drill some new holes. So I drilled holes and the adapter mounts up perfectly! Now I just need a new gasket to replace the one I ruined when I removed the adapter from the Tcase.
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Made some progress this weekend on the truck. After marking everywhere that was causing interference problems, I "massaged" the firewall back.
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It's the first time I've ever done this sort of think so hopefully I can smooth it out a bit as I go. Worst case scenario, no one else but me will really notice because it's behind the engine and in the footwell. On the plus side, there's almost enough room for the engine now! I now have better clearance above the tie rods, more room for the steering and there's still plenty of room for the intake once it's installed.
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scotch brite pad for intake manifold height. :happy10:
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I also removed the factory trans and tcase crossmember mounts to make room for new ones and space for the future exhaust.
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Speaking of, I got my new to me OE headers for the V10. I want to send them out to be ceramic coated so they look a little nicer.
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Hopefully only one more test fit before fab work starts. I've got a lot of things vying for my time over the next two weeks (including actual work and the Detroit Gambler500) so hopefully I can continue to make some progress.