The Great Bronco Engine Transplant-Getting Close To Startup

The Great Bronco Engine Transplant is rapidly heading to conclusion. I will be so bold as to speculate that within another week, I should make the first attempt to start the engine.

Since the last post, I removed the engine to finish some items and clear some of the interferences. While the engine was out, I painted the frame in the engine bay. I pounded on the flange/tunnel area to try to get more clearance for the headers. I put the engine back in last Friday. Still had a little interference with the oil pan, so I lifted the engine, reformed the corner of the pan a little. Good clearance now. So I put the engine back in. Still had interference with the right header. So, Monday I pulled the engine out again, found a bigger hammer and beat in the area in the tunnel that was hitting the header. I put the engine back in and now I have plenty of room between the header and the body. I reconfigured the heat shield and riveted it back in place. Not pretty, but should work. Hooked up the heater hoses and made a bracket to hold them from swinging around.

Wednesday, I installed the transfer case. It weighs about 60 pounds and is awkward. I am working on the floor without jacking the BII up, so I did not have room to "bench press" it into position. Didn't want to get under it anyway. I do not own a transmission jack either. I floundered around some before I thought of using my motorcycle lift. It is a lot like a transmission jack and is low enough to fit under the vehicle. The input spline needs to line up with the transmission output shaft, so it took some effort to get it all lined up.

While the engine was out for a week, I tried to get the company that supplied the headers and mounts to come up with what was wrong with them. They still hit on the drivers side. First they wanted pictures. I sent them. Next I called them and about two weeks ago I got in touch with someone. He said that they had a 302/BII conversion coming into the shop that afternoon and would take pictures. Nothing. I called and left messages. No response. I even sent them another email Monday about a question about torque for the header bolts. No answer. I finally gave up and engineered my own fix. I added 1/4 inch spacers between the engine and the mount and rounded the frame half of the mount. I now have about 5/16" clearance. It infuriates me when a company won't answer or respond. That is worse than the problem itself. To me it shows a complete lack of respect for the customer. I will never buy from this company again!

Yesterday I hooked up the B&M cable shifter and put the interior together again.I also installed the radiator and was going to install the mechanical fan. It would not fit, it hit the crankshaft pulley even with a spacer installed. I could not put a longer spacer in because I was already close to the radiator. The pulley has four grooves for all the accessories and is very long. I originally bought an electric fan, but thought that it was too tight to install it. So I took a look at the electric fan again and was able to figure out a way to install it offset from the water pump pulley. It offsets to the driver's side edge of the radiator. I hope it will move enough air to cool adequately.

Today I went for a parts run to one of the auto parts store. I had a shopping list that included spark plugs, air cleaner, engine paint, radiator hoses and some miscellaneous fittings. I was most concerned about the radiator hoses as this is a custom installation. I told the salesman what I was looking for. I made up sketches of what I needed. We looked through his stock and found a hose with the correct end connection sizes and correct angle and straight lengths. And it looked like it could be cut into three pieces for all the parts I needed. Sure enough, after I cut it, it fit great. Still need to trim some on the upper. The upper hose has the remote fill in the middle of the hose. My radiator is the Advanced Adapter radiator that fits forward towards the grill underneath the radiator/hood support. There is no room for the fill connection in the radiator.

Today I also fabbed some stronger fan supports to the surrounding structure. I was drilling a hole in one of the small parts and handholding it(no gloves). When the bit broke through, it grabbed and spun the part. Not sure exactly what happened, but it must have sucked me in and grabbed the sleeve of my coat too. The end of my thumb was torn up the worst(will probably have a strange thumb print) with lots of blood and my palm swelled up around where the thumb joins. I got all the bleeding stopped and bandaged up. There was some other cuts on adjacent fingers. I think I will put the drill press vise back on. This sort of freaks me out. A few years ago one of my coworkers was using a drill press at home with gloves on and wrapped a finger of the glove around a 1/4 inch bit and lost part of his little finger. And today as I was drilling, I was thinking of a rerun episode of American Chopper where Rick(one of the experienced fabricators) did the same thing with gloves on and got his hand mangled. I think I came out of this well.

Painted out the frame in the engine compartment.

The engine going back into the Bronco for hopefully the last time. Using the motorcycle lift for lifting the transfer case into position onto the transmission output connection. The new transmission adapter fit great!

The radiator hose cut into the three pieces. The left piece is for the lower hose and the two right pieces are for the upper hose with the remote fill/pressure cap tee in the middle of them. When I bought this, I did not know what this hose was for. I did an Internet search from the part number and found out that it was for a Chevrolet Blazer.