The Resurrection of Vixen Continues...

["Dave Stragand" <dave.stragand@xxxx>]

Well,

A DeLorean certainly looks better with an engine in her. =)

I spent the past week finishing up all of the little things needed on
the engine, and then borrowed a hoist from a friend on Sunday and
started the process of the install.

Now, a few of you out there have helpfully commented that it's easier to
replace the engine and trans already bolted together. I appreciate the
advice, but usually do things the hard way anyway. (I'm stubborn like
that).

Actually, in truth it just hadn't really occured to me to do so. Oh
well. But, since the trans was already mounted, I reached into my bag
of tricks from the past to find an easy way to get the trans and engine
together without having to take the trans out. (Gumption trap #1 --
"Out of Sequence Reassembly". See my website and you'll understand.)

Now, I have mentioned that I also have a '58 Plymouth. That car and a
DeLorean have very little in common, but hear me out on this story, and
soon you'll understand the relevance to a D.

The automatic transmission on that Plymouth is called a torqueflite, and
it's made almost entirely out of cast iron. Total weight is somewhere
in the neighborhood of 300 pounds. Not an easy beast to maneuver you
can be sure, especially while all covered in that greasy black goop that
seems to accumulate only on transmissions. There was no way to lift the
trans up onto the jack while lying underneath the car on my stomach, so
I had to lift the -car- up enough to sufficiently clear the trans
already on the jack. Now, with the car so high, the trans jack could
not lift the trans enough to meet up with the engine. This is what is
sometimes referred to as "a quandry". I referred to it as something
else -- something in "French" -- and something definitely not repeatable
on a family-friendly mailing list...

Lowering the car (and simultaneously, the jack supporting the engine)
back down to where the trans could mate solved that little problem.
However, another problem now presented itself, in that no matter how I
tried (for 5 hours), I could not get the input shaft to line up with the
engine. Those of you who have tried to maneuver a D trans into place
may know the feeling. Multiply that by three and you've got a
torqueflite. The thing was so heavy I actually broke three trans jacks,
necessitating the "Plymouth up, Plymouth down" push-up process enough
times to put an Army boot camp recruit to shame. It seemed impossible,
but there had to be some way to get them aligned.

The solution was a quick trip to the hardware store with one of the
engine-trans mounting bolts. I matched up the size and thread to
heat-treated bolts approximately 6" long -- 4" longer than the
originals. Arriving back home, I threaded these bolts through the trans
casing back into the engine block, and then aligned the engine and trans
to as close an angle as possible. Then, all it took was to slide the
trans right up the bolts until it clicked in place, already
pre-aligned. The whole process, now that the 'alignment bolts' were
installed, took only about 60 seconds.

Big difference.

Soooo... Not having learned my lesson (I'm stubborn like that), I tried
for around 3 hours on Sunday to get the Vixen's engine and trans aligned
without the bolts, but to absolutely no avail. I had skipped buying the
alignment bolts out of a total impatience to get home to try and install
the engine. I should have known better, especially considering my past
nightmares. I've learned that being impatient always takes more time
than just being patient in the first place.

So, tonight I stopped at Pep Boys and bought two 10mm x 120mm and two
10mm x 100mm coarse-thread grade 10.9 bolts. At home, I threaded the
two longer bolts through the trans into the block on the top, and the
two shorter ones on the bottom. (You need the shorter ones on the
bottom to clear the output hubs on the trans). A quick little lift on
the hoist gave a rough alignment, and a push of the engine back onto the
trans yielded a satisfying clunk as the two components clicked together
effortlessly. Like I said, I should have known better.

If you're going to try this yourself, you could also use studs, but the
bolts are only threaded at the end, giving a nice smooth surface to
slide on. I should also mention that you should NOT support either the
trans or engine from these bolts. The casings are not designed to
handle the odd force vectors encountered in this situation -- just use
them for alignment only, with both pieces supported well. Once you've
slid the two halves together, pull the bolts one by one, and replace
them with the correct bolts. Then as the French sould say... "Voila!"
It's a different French language than I was using on the Plymouth, to be
sure.

So, the engine installation is done, but the Vixen is far from being
done. Not that that depresses me though, I do realize the value of
progress. Every uphill climb consists of a lot of little steps.
Tonight, we took a big one.

This whole crazy project might just work after all... A lot of people
tried to talk me out of it, but I was (and still am) convinced that it
can be done.

I'm stubborn like that.

-Dave Stragand, #5927
http://www.ProjectVixen.com