Swapping motors. Any tips?

[Deezelcaddy]

As some of you may know from my concurrent thread about the ip, my truck has a dead hole in #1 cylinder. I have found a good junk yard motor and I will be doing the swap this weekend. I wanted to put out this thread to see if there were any tricks to yanking this monster. I have pulled my share of engines so I imagine it is pretty straight forward. My plan is to pull the rad and core support so I don't have to lift it too high. I will replace any leaky gaskets on the jy motor and do some upgrades on my way out: southbend 1
Piece flywheel/clutch, electric vac pump, carrier pump, new water pump and stat etc. I have a heavy duty 2
ton cherry picker so lifting it shouldn't be a problem. Thanx in advance for any advice/comments

 

[Bashby]

I'd replace the orings in the oil cooler while the engine is out. When I did mine I removed the hood and rad, but not the core support. Remove the oil filter before you try to pull it.

 

[USNENFTS]

I think it's easier to just lift up over the top instead of taking the whole front of the truck apart. This is what mine looked like when I removed it a few weeks ago. Need flywheel removed, oil filter removed and fan removed, as well as the radiator/fan shroud. When you get that junkyard engine, I would have the heads checked for cracks then replace all the gaskets/o-rings.

You must be registered for see images attach

 

[IDIoit]

my advice...
take that junkyard engine and change every damn seal and gasket.
changing the front and rear seal while its in the truck is a PITA.
if youre running a turbo, i would learn from USNENFTS, pull the heads and change head gaskets also.

theres nothing more satisifying than opening your hood to a nice clean fresh gasketed and painted engine!!

i also wouldnt remove the core support, but this is nothing more than a matter of personal prefrence and tooling you have.

drain the oil and take the filter off, i always seem to smash em'
do not install with a filter on.

 

[Zaggnutt]

This may be in my future.... Great tips so far

 

[ironworker40]

Radiator support and front bumper removal makes a lot of your work standing up instead of laying over top of radiator. But it is not absolutely necessary. Oil filter and starter is necessary. I used a new dual mass flywheel and clutch, because of gear rollover noise and added wear on gears. I figured if the original clutch lasted 150,000 If I get that out of this one the truck will be ready for retirement. Rear seal is a good idea, you dont want to have to take trans out to do that, you should be able to see if it is leaking. Front seal can be done in truck but everything is easier when its out. Oil cooler is a must in my opinion. They are not fun to remove in the truck and it is simple to do when motor is out. If you don't have a press to press oil cooler back together , I used two pony clamps. It worked great.

 

[IDIoit]

Radiator support and front bumper removal makes a lot of your work standing up instead of laying over top of radiator. But it is not absolutely necessary. Oil filter and starter is necessary. I used a new dual mass flywheel and clutch, because of gear rollover noise and added wear on gears. I figured if the original clutch lasted 150,000 If I get that out of this one the truck will be ready for retirement. Rear seal is a good idea, you dont want to have to take trans out to do that, you should be able to see if it is leaking. Front seal can be done in truck but everything is easier when its out. Oil cooler is a must in my opinion. They are not fun to remove in the truck and it is simple to do when motor is out. If you don't have a press to press oil cooler back together , I used two pony clamps. It worked great.

I used a jack and a 1200 pound bench to get mine together..lol

 

[ironworker40]

I used a jack and a 1200 pound bench to get mine together..lol

Well I seen u tube video's with idiot's ( no pun intended) doing all sorts of stupid things to get them back together. One moron had a floor jack and use the frame rail and it lifted his truck off the ground. It doesn't press hard at all if you lube it and press it straight. The pony clamps were not even straining. If they had a lager depth I would have only needed one. I needed two to keep it square. Now back to the original thread.

 

[ironworker40]

I might add if you go ver the radiator support you can remove front tires and lower down the front until the rotors almost touch the ground . That will make your lift a few inches less and you can reach over the radiator support easier.

 

[Bashby]

I usually just let the air out of the tires. Makes a huge difference.

 

[riotwarrior]

IMHO....and I'll reiterate this for the umpteenth time.....

REMOVE the clip...the front rad support and fenders and inner fenders...

It inevitably makes working on the truck much much easier...also if you remove only rad support, there is almost if not MORE work to do than the just removing the entire front clip...

Having to undo a bunch of small bolts in the corners of fenders and so forth for just a rad support...

it's 12 bolts to remove the clip along with removing rad and so forth. YES 12 bolts

each fender or side of truck as follows

2 bolts by hood hinges

1 bolt accessed on rear edge of fender by opening door

1 bolt under lower rear lip of fender by door

1 bolt accessed in fenderwell holds inner fender structure in place

1 bolt on each side of the rad support...which are the worst usually...( need get these two anyway to remove just rad support right fella's???)

12 bolts....total...

Now you have more access than you can imagine...and NO need to remove fan what so ever...

lots of room to clean, paint, do what ever it is you need to do.

I have this down to about an hour to do and two buddies to remove ....Once rad is removed of course!

Of course there is a few small details, unclipping wiring harness from firewall and chassis but this is in my opinion the absolute best method for engine removal if you have room to do so!

JM$2.00W this time

end rant

E D I T


BTW you can leave hood on or remove it...both methods work..one allows cover of engine one allows more room for less head banging!

 

[ironworker40]

I agree with riotwarrior 100 percent. I did the radiator support method for other reasons and it took longer than and hour and he is right it has a lot of bolts. The only advantage is you can do it yourself, no help needed and I painted the radiator support real easilly to keep it from rusting. Also the hood and fenders stayed on to keep things dry, when your done at night you can bungie hood down and the truck looks like its complete. My neighbor didn't even know I had the engine out.

 

[Deezelcaddy]

All great advice. I am definitely going to re -seal the oil cooler. I have the reinz o rings on the shelf and I have a press. I have a ats o88 turbo installed on my motor. Does this change anything when it comes to yanking the motor?

 

[93blklightning]

Let me know how those Victor Reinz oil cooler rings work.
I've thought about getting a set, but I've always heard motorcaft is the way to go.

 

[Deezelcaddy]

I finally got this boat anchor out. I couldn't pull the turbo because the up and down pipes were gaulded in the turbo. I had to pull the exhaust manifold and bench press the exhaust while I took the bell housing bolt out an 1/8 of a turn at a time while flipping the wrench. I had to cut the down pipe. I will weld it up when I get them out of the turbo. I also pulled the studs and I will use bolts on reassembly in case I ever have to tear it down again. I installed the new stat and re-sealed the oil cooler. I pulled the oil pan and re glued it. I replaced the exhaust manifold and valve cover gaskets. I put the fuel block of plate on cause I'm going dura lift. I need to replace the rear main seal today and bolt my new southbend clutch and solid flywheel on and it's time to drop it in. riot was so right. Removing the core support was a nightmare. It took forever and all the bolts were frozen. Next time I will make some friends and pull the whole front clip. It has been below zero here for like a week and I don't have the headroom to pull the motor straight up. My truck has a ladder rack and doesn't fit in my garage either so I the door sitting in the windshield and insulation and tarps stuffed around it. Not ideal. I am also doing this totally by myself so it had been a bit of a struggle but I feel like I'm on the down hill slide. Thanx to all your help has been invaluable.