Tuesday, March 15, 2011

The Great Bronco Engine Transplant- The New Heart Fits

Today was a big milestone. With some help from my dad, we have the 302 V8 engine sitting in the Bronco II on the motor mounts.

For now, this is just for fitment and mockup and I plan on taking the engine out and putting it back in at least one more time. The biggest issue today is that the pan hits the passenger I beam bracket. This is a known issue in this type of conversion. I may grind on the bracket some more, put a dent in the pan or both. Also, I may have to lift the engine a little to get the headers on. Maybe I should have installed them first.

Although the bell housing does not hit the tunnel flange, I will probably bend it flat for header clearance on the right side. This is also a known item, but I wanted to try installing the engine first to see how it looked. Now do you see why I had planned to remove and reinstall this engine again?

But, now I can design and fabricate all the systems and components needed to make this engine run.

Good progress today. It took about 1-1/2 hours from picking the engine up off the floor up to having the bolts in the motor mounts. It will be easier next time
Transmission attached and ready to hoist.
High above the body of the bronco.
Tipped up and starting into the engine compartment.
Engine sitting where it was designed to go.


2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Looking good, the 1 1/2 hours probably went by pretty fast.

Dan said...

It went fast until we struggled trying to get the last motor mount bolt in. Things would not line up and time slowed down.