engine drop in, something is not right..?
 

ok i go to drop my motor in yeterday and its not fitting right. first, i installed the clutch outside the car with an alignment tool. i go to drop the motor in and it going into the tranny shaft but its stoping about 3/4" out. i could not get it to budge. i wiggled and every thing, got nothing. so i pulled it back out and loosend up the bolts on the clutch ( i thought the alighnment there was off ) so i drop it back int and now i got it pretty much all the way in close enough to where the bolts all go in, so put 3 of the bell housing bolts in. and everything seems to come together smooth. now i go to line up the motor mounts and they are way off. tranny is pretty much flat with the engine at this point. but the motor mounts are 1/8" forward and 1/4" to the left. so the engine is sitting offset. again i tried to wiggle to get them to line up and nothing. so now i have the tranny in and the mounts off. i checked all around for something holding it. didnt find nothing. now my question is could anything be bent? like the ecc. shaft inside that is making it offset. something just doesnt seem right on there. (btw i have done this before and never had this problem.) any help appreciated.

If you had the clutch lined up with an alignment tool you shouldnt have had to loosen it up to get it to fit. Your probably just hitting the teeth on the tranny input shaft to the motors output shaft. Try to turn the motor over a little bit with a breaker bar on the main pully and slide it on. One key thing is to make sure the motor and tranny are at the exact same plane...So lets say the tranny is at a slight angle upwards from back to front, make sure the motor is matching that angle as well. Once you can them to start mating, just get some bellhousing bolts in there and slowly sinch them down evenly. Dont reef on them, just nice and easy, doing like a tire lug nut pattern...Good luck!!

thanks for the quick reply. i am going to give that a shot, ill tighten all the bolts on the bell housing and see if it lines up better. for some reason it just feels like somthing is hanging up. like the imput shaft is not going to the pilot bearing.

Yea, just be careful. Dont force it cause you will probably break somethin. Take your time, it will go eventually...Though thats usually just before you get pissed and start trying to muscle it in, so just be patient.

If you have less than an inch gap, you are in the pilot bearing. Just use the starter bolts (as they are longer) to bring the gap down and then use the proper bellhousing bolts to torque it down.

I've dropped my tranny more times in the past 3 years than I care to disclose and it never goes all the way in for me with some bolt torquing help. However, I do keep the pilot bearing seal refreshed to it could be the part of pushing the rest of the shaft through that seal which causing the problem.