3.4 V-6/T-5 Engine Tranny Swap - Phase III

[namba209]

GM 60 DEGREE V-6/T-5 TRANSMISSION TRANSPLANT PHASE III

Making holes and filling them.

O.K. I’ve got the subframes built and painted that bolt to the engine and transmission, they also bolt up to the car. Now to put the whole mess into the car. The engine/tranny package was hoisted up and put in the bay with the tranny subframe bolted to the tranny. The engine crankshaft pulley, subframe, with rubber mounts, engine mounting plates, and accessory mounting bracket were left off the engine for the installation. The package was dropped in to bay by bolting a chain to the left lifting mount and on the right top outboard accessory mount bolt. This put the package in about a 45 degree angle facilitating the installation with the car sitting with the tires on the ground. Basically the package was lifted up high enough to clear the radiator support and then dropped, pushed back a couple of times to get it into position for the tailshaft to rest on a floor jack. The package was pulled back and the tranny jacked up to bolt the tranny subframe in place.
But first, after an initial installation, the driver’s footwell and the wiper motor well have to be cut for the necessary clearance to get the engine centered left and right in the engine bay. The fore and aft have already been determined by the location of the transmission shifter.

After studying Mike Pilkenton’s and Nathan Acree’s pictures of their transplants, the engine package was taken out one more time and I broke out the Dremel and packages of Dremel fabric reinforced cutting wheels and went for it. In less than an hour the initial holes were made.

Time to install the engine package and see how close I am. The package was installed as before, with the tranny mount bolted in place to the car. Then engine was then dropped all the way to the ground and the engine plates were loosely bolted to the engine, then raised up and the subframes loosely attached to the mounting plates. Then the whole assembly was raised and the subframe bolted in place to the car. I spent two days figuring this step out. I tried to bolt the subframe into the car first but couldn’t get the engine high enough, because of the wiper well clearance, to align the mounting plates to bolt them in. During this trial and error period, I found I had to trim the wiper well a little bit more toward the outside front of the engine bay.

After the subframe was torqued down the rest of the bolts were torqued, starting with the mounting plates, then the rubber mounts. And as can be seen from the photos, I didn’t have to cut the footwell as far down as I did or cut the wiper well that far back towards the firewall.

Also, additional trimming is needed to the foot well for exhaust clearance. I slid the Fiero headers in the along the engine on the passenger side and they bolted right to the engine. The driver’s side was more of a hassle, I had to cut the footwell back further and trim the front edge closer to the steering shaft. These cuts were made with the engine in the hole and will be redone and made neater after the engine is back out. Both Fiero headers bolted up to the engine after the holes were made bigger/longer. This type of header is what will have to be used as there is not enough clearance to run the exhaust down and back from the center of the block. The engine mounting plate and starter are in the way on the right side. The clearance is not enough on the left side, although a header pipe will fit behind the oil filter, the clearance for the brake lines and fuel lines is too close for my comfort.

Well, it took a real long time to finally get the exhaust done, so I could see what I had to do to finalize the engine installation. I ended up making some custom log type manifolds, courtesy of an idea and part numbers I got from Bob Legerre, AKA, RallyBob. Basically they are weldable steel 1 ¼” elbows and “T”s, and a short piece of seamless pipe, from McMaster-Carr. I also was lucky enough to find a local here that makes flame cut exhaust flanges. To make a long story short, I order the wrong length of the elbows, and although the right side fit o.k., the left side interfered with the steering shaft. I then ordered another batch of elbows and Ts and another flange and had them welded up. By using the shorter elbows and trimming the vertical leg of the T, I was able to gain about an inch clearance between the manifold and steering shaft. That whole story is in Phase V.

To seal the footwell and the wiper well from the engine compartment,, I decided to use 3 ½” thick wall exhaust tubing that would wrap around the manifold and weld some sheetmetal to it that would bolt to the existing sheetmetal, so I would have access to install the manifold after the engine was installed, and close up the wiper well hole, What I did for exhaust manifold clearance was cut a short length of the pipe and weld it just next to the steering shaft hole, with enough room to lay another piece on top of it. I did the same to the rear of the footwell, but it is 90 degrees to the one up front, necessitating the building of an L shaped piece that I could weld the sheetmetal to and use it as an access panel.

After doing the initial welding with the engine in the car, to be sure there was ample room, I pulled the drivetrain package and set out to fabricate some sheetmetal that would make the access panel smaller and easier to fabricate.

What I did was lay out some stiff paper to where I wanted the sheetmetal to be, traced the hole to the paper, cut the paper and used it as a template on the sheetmetal, drew around the template and cut the metal with some aircraft shears. The sheetmetal was welded in place.

I did the same process again, only this time I used the removable tube and the existing holes and made the templates, giving me enough room to fasten the panel in with screws. I drilled the screw holes, attached the upper and lower sheetmetal to the structure with 8-32 screws and nuts. The welder came and tack welded the nuts in place and tack welded the sheetmetal to the removable tube. I pulled screws out and the access panel was welded up in one piece. I used the same technique to close up the wiper well, I used a short piece of the exhaust tubing and made some angle cuts so it would fit pretty close to the shape of the initial cuts. After the tube was welded in, I laid out a template that would fill the rest of the hole and also fit inside the tube. After cutting out the sheetmetal I laid it in the hole, made the necessary lines and bent the piece 90 degrees to fill the tube cavity and also the rest of the hole.

So that in a nutshell is how I setup the car for the engine/tranny to be installed.