The Little Engine That Could

I reached a fairly major milestone yesterday: getting my new engine mounted in my Jeep. Sure, there's still a lot of work to do before it's drivable (let alone finished), but it feels good to have gotten this far.



It took Dave and I about an hour to maneuver the engine into place and weld the mounts to the frame. I think we got pretty lucky because all we really had to do was jack it up high enough to clear the frame and then push the cherry picker while guiding the transmission into the hole in the firewall. It ended up sitting in perfect position with very little adjustment.



The two most important factors in the engine positioning were: 1) making sure that the hole in the floor of the body was positioned above the part of the transmission where the gear shifter will be bolted in, and 2) getting the valve cover as close to the firewall as possible so that there won't be any clearance issues when the radiator is re-installed.



Once the engine was in a good spot, Dave made some small welds between the motor mounts and the frame. Then we were able to lower the engine a bit with the cherry picker so that it settled into place. The weight of the engine also cause the motor mounts to sit flush against the frame, making it easier to create a solid weld.









After the engine was securely welded in place, I decided to install my new front shocks which I ordered last week. It was a really easy install which only took about 20 minutes. They will not only improve the ride quality, but the fresh white shocks and the clean black shock boots looks really nice.