[69hardtop]

Wanted to provide some follow up thoughts after I installed my engine yesterday. I had been following a couple of posts regarding the use of an engine lift plate, install with/without trans together, with exhaust manifolds or not, etc….. Anyway, I got mine installed in less than 45 minutes (motor mount bolts in and trans cross member bolted in) and here are my notes:
- Used the engine plate, hooked through the most forward mount for best tilt angle
- Muncie M20 trans attached (shifter plate on but no shifter)
- Ram Air exhaust manifolds installed
- Starter installed

We lifted it up high enough to clear the core support, pushed down some on the rear of trans and it pretty much went right in, I got hung up just a little when the bell housing was up against the firewall and I couldn’t clear the drivers side exhaust manifold but a little bit of jiggling/rocking and it dropped right in. Have a little scrape close to the top of the firewall tunnel I can easily repair. Didn’t get any actual “hanging on the chain hoist” pics as it when in so fast.

[ZeGermanHam]

Awesome! Car and engine look great. Congrats!

Thanks for posting this. I'm getting close to reinstalling the engine & trans in my '66 and I'm debating the best approach. I am using headers which I will likely leave off, but seems like installing it with the trans and starter on is pretty easy. Any close calls with banging into your distributor during the install?

[OCMDGTO]

Looks great

[69hardtop]

Originally Posted by ZeGermanHam

Awesome! Car and engine look great. Congrats!

Thanks for posting this. I'm getting close to reinstalling the engine & trans in my '66 and I'm debating the best approach. I am using headers which I will likely leave off, but seems like installing it with the trans and starter on is pretty easy. Any close calls with banging into your distributor during the install?

No problem with the distributor; my issue was that the two top bolt hole boss’s on the bell housing were tight against the firewall tunnel at the top center. I had to slide the trans crossmember back as far as possible (so I could push the rear of the trans down) to the get the right “tilt” of the assembly to clear