Panther99

We just completed our head gasket replacement to address our major oil leak (pulled engine out).
It is a '97 with the 4.6 Windsor and a 5 speed. Having a terrible time getting the motor mated back up to the tranny.
Anyone have any recommendations to help realign the motor to get it to bolt up?
Thanks!

formerjeepguy

What kind of problem are you having?

Did you use a clutch alignment tool to properly align your clutch disc and pilot bearing before tightening the pressure plate?

Panther99

formerjeepguy

When using an engine hoist to install an engine it's not unusual to have to tilt the engine to match the trans angle and raise/lower slightly to get it all lined up. Then it's usually just a jiggle and a push to get it to slide into place. Yes, you might have to turn the engine or transmission to get the splines to line up. I'm sure there are some youtube videos out there showing how it's done.

white89gt

I have ever-so-slightly bumped the pressure plate before and had the disk slide out of center.

As far as rotating the motor is concerned, the clutch disc is not going to move separate from the pressure plate as long as the pressure plate is engaged.

BareBonesXL

How close is it? The pilot bushing is the last part, after the splines. If it's just a half inch it's the pilot bushing. Wiggling side to side and up and down works there because the splines are already engaged. If it's the splines then putting the trans in gear and turning the output shaft can help.

One trick is to cut the head off of a long transmission bolt and use it as an alignment stud. Then pull it out and put the bolt in after you get things mated. Make sure that the trans and engine gap is always the same, that tells you it's not cocked.

Panther99

Thanks for all the help. Yep, slipped my hand up in with an alignment tool and all was ok. Then started wiggling it back and forth (ended up taking the passenger side motor mount bracket out to help getting it moved back without having to lift as high up to help with angle- driver side bracket looked much harder to remove with 4wd differential). Basically, son up top raising/lowering/moving cherry picker right/left/back and forth while I was underneath doing a bench press shuffle on the ends of the two exhaust manifolds...all the while continuing to expand his vocabulary of colorful metaphors. Noticed there was a rubber grommet on the drivers side of the transmission to look directly at the input shaft going into the clutch/pressure plate...this greatly helped getting the alignment right (wish I would have noticed that yesterday). Once about 3/4" out, splines were engaged (had back end jacked up just enough to have in gear to slowly rotate) and went in smoothly.

Thanks again for all the suggestions!

white89gt

Nice. Glad you got it all figured out.

BTW, is "Panther" derived from the Crown Vic platform?

Panther99

Nah....just the local mascot of our boys' school. And 99 from the oldest one's racing number (we're in Missouri so they still idolize Carl Edwards ).

white89gt

Ahhh, OK. I thought maybe you had a 99 Crown Vic