1978 FJ40 2F Engine swap (1 Viewer)

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Ok, we made some great progress this weekend! We've got the motor just about in, with only about 1" more to go to mate the engine and tranny all the way. We ran out of time, but I was going to put a strap on the tranny to the axle to help pull them together, and rotate the rear driveline to get the splines to align.

The real bugger was putting the clutch fork and throwout hub retainer clips on while the two were partly together! I fought the upper clip for probably 30 minutes- eventually I had to bend it a hair to get it on. Tough to do blind. I'm sure I did that in the wrong order. :)

I think another day of wrangling and it'll be together. Then reassembly and hopefully the thing starts!!
 
On the new engine, Did you replace the pilot bearing? It should have come with the new clutch kit. And, did you dry-fit in onto the input shaft of the tranny first??? If you skipped either one of these steps, That could be the reason why you can't get it to go the last inch.
 
Ok, we made some great progress this weekend! We've got the motor just about in, with only about 1" more to go to mate the engine and tranny all the way. We ran out of time, but I was going to put a strap on the tranny to the axle to help pull them together, and rotate the rear driveline to get the splines to align.

The real bugger was putting the clutch fork and throwout hub retainer clips on while the two were partly together! I fought the upper clip for probably 30 minutes- eventually I had to bend it a hair to get it on. Tough to do blind. I'm sure I did that in the wrong order. :)

I think another day of wrangling and it'll be together. Then reassembly and hopefully the thing starts!!
Now if you had mated the engine to the tranny outside of the truck, you could have avoided the hassle of fighting with the clutch fork assembly. Live and learn I guess. At least you got it.
 
strap=bad idea.
 
On the new engine, Did you replace the pilot bearing? It should have come with the new clutch kit. And, did you dry-fit in onto the input shaft of the tranny first??? If you skipped either one of these steps, That could be the reason why you can't get it to go the last inch.

Yeah, new pilot bearing. I didnt test fit it though. It was just the 2 of us wrestling it, so we'll try again with a 3rd and see how it goes!
 
Now if you had mated the engine to the tranny outside of the truck, you could have avoided the hassle of fighting with the clutch fork assembly. Live and learn I guess. At least you got it.

Sure, but with the end in sight we couldnt resist at least trying! We'll give it another go, and if it doesnt mate, we can pull it all out. :)
 
If it doesn't go, my guess would be the pilot bearing doesn't fit on the shaft.
 
I'll post some pics later, but we've almost got it!

With the help of a couple friends, we mated the tranny to the engine, and reassembled the rest of the engine bits. Put all the oils and fluids in it, as well as a new battery, and tried to start it. It wasnt getting fuel to the carb, and it turned out that the FJ60 2F engine block had a spacer under the mechanical fuel pump that kept the FJ40 fuel pump from contacting the engine lobe that actuated it! After taking that off, it pumped fuel properly. I had to adjust the float level on the Holley carb because it was puking fuel out the bowl tube.

Now it runs really nicely... Except it's leaking coolant from under the radiator. Cant really see where- but it's not from either of the big hoses, and it's above the drain plug... Wondering if the rad was damaged during it's moving around in the shop.

We'll figure that one out another day!

We're very excited that it runs, and sounds GREAT! I'll try to post some video and pics. Thanks to everyone that has helped, this forum is great.
 
More progress! So, I had the radiator pressure tested just to see if was the source of the leak. It wasnt. When I was reinstalling it, I noticed that we missed putting one of the water pump bolts in! I fixed that, reinstalled everything, and it doesnt seem to leak now, imagine that. Starts, runs nicely, clutch works, brakes work...

Just have to bleed the PS and do a couple other little things, but it's just about ready to go! We even drove it around.

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Way to go! If you ever have to do it all over again, try it the other way(pulling everything out as one unit). I think you'll agree that it's much easier.
Nice job!
 

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