Engine Swappage

[Yager]

Okay, so I am at the point where it is time to reinstall the clutch and pressure plate on the new block. It seems pretty straight forward, I decided to use my old clutch, it's not in great shape, but has just under an eighth of an inch of wear left on it before it hits the rivets, and with cost and shipping time, I'm just going to have to replace it later.

Here is my issue, so maybe you all know a secret. I have no alignment tool to get the clutch plate lined up with the splines inside the flywheel. Anyone know a homegrown secret I can use or will I be able to eyeball it and get it right in the end?

[Mudviper]

Plastic clutch alignment tools are quite cheap to pick up at the auto parts store, and I believe there are a couple people in the club that have one for  your engine also. If you want a cheap way of doing this, I have heard of people using the end of a wooden broom handle as an alignment tool or something similar to that. The problem with this is that it doesn't align the teeth.

One thing you might consider replacing before you put the clutch in place is to replace the pilot bearing or at least check it out to see if it needs replaced.

[Yager]

Yeah, I havn't checked it but it was working just fine when I pulled the engine. I'll inspect it before I throw the engine back in. My time window is shrinking so I'm trying to work quickly without cutting too many corners.

If I use a broom handle to align it, and the teeth arn't aligned, will the clutch plate be able to shift slightly between the fly wheel and the pressure plate so it will align?

[Mudviper]

If the teeth are not aligned on the clutch, you will not get the transmission connected to the engine, sense the output shaft of the trans needs to slide through the teeth of the clutch

[Yager]

The engine is in. I finished at 11pm. But I'm g2g.. Now I put the accessories on and hope for the best.

[Yager]

The wiring harness was not half as bad as I had suspected. things only go one way. The vacuum lines I did just a little guessing on, but they look good, so I'll cross my fingers there..

I didn't change over the oil pressure sensor off the other engine, so I wont have oil pressure gauge, unless I figure out how to get the old one off, or find an old wiring harness connection and splice it in, since it mounts differently.

When I inserted my distributer I had the 1 cyl at Top Dead Center on the compression stroke, but the slotted doo dad didn't line up with the 1 post on my distributer cap, it lined up perfectly with the two post, so I just used that as my one, following the firing order from there, so I hope that wont matter too much. It should work in theory.

I need to re-install the radiator, the starter, the alternator and tighten down the trans-engine bolts, install my front clip and I should be running strong.. I can probably get that done tomorrow afternoon, so, pray for me.

[Mudviper]

sounds like you are on the right track

[Yager]

Okay, so I've hit another brick wall, maybe one of you can help me. It involves ground wires...

Okay, so I have several wires I'm dealing with, I have a 95 YJ 2.5L..

I have the ground from the alternator (where does it go?),  ground from the battery (goes to engine ground right?), Pos from the battery (goes to starter), the small solenoid wire (hooked up), and last, but surely not least as I think this might be the issue, the two small wires that come off the same hunk of wires my starter pos does and go into one eyelet, (I suspect these go on the same starter lug as the pos, but that doesn't seem to be working).

If I hook the last wires I mentioned to an engine ground, it will click, but not start, battery is pretty low. But I'm concerned that I might be frying stuff if I do that. If I don't ground that wire, my check engine light and blinker light stays on even with the key out of the ignition, which means something somewhere isn't grounded.

Someone help? Maybe go look at their YJ and figure out where all this crap goes.

[jeepfan1974]

well i'll go look but it wont help ya ::poke::    do the extra wires have large eylets on the ends?

[Yager]

Yes, they fit on the starter and the engine block ground. If I don't ground it out I have a hot wire that makes my check engine light stay on. If I do, it'll turn, but the voltage goes up when I crank instead of down, so I'm worried I could cook my harness.

[Mudviper]

Starter might be bound up against the flywheel or the clutch bound up.

You can try to remove the starter from the engine. Take some jumper cables and ground the starter to the engine then turn the starter over to see if it operates properly.

[Yager]

I had it bench tested, it worked fine. I had this probably before the engine swap.. Okay, lemme repost what's going on, since I had a clearer picture of it now.

The pos terminal on the battery has two wires, one goes to the fuse block, the other goes to the starter.

The negative battery has two wires, one goes to the engine ground, the other to a firewall body ground.

The alternator has a large black ground wire, it only reaches the engine ground, and there's no place to mount it on the frame. It wont reach the battery.

Near the pos harness that attaches to my starter is a set of small regular wires, not fat ground wires. One is black, the other is black with a orangish red stripe, they come into one eyelet that easilly reaches the starter post and is the same size as the pos eyelet on the starter. If I hook it to the starter I have a short and my check engine light is always on. I can stretch it to the body, if I hook it there, I lose the short and my starter will make a 'click' noise, but wont turn all the way over.

I just replaced the battery and tried again today, didn't help.. I'm kind of at wits end, I don't know what could be the issue.

[Mudviper]

If you are in Howell, I can swing by and see what we can figure out since I am in Brighton  at the moment.. I get out of work at 5

My cell is 810-210-6177

[Yager]

I figured it out! I don't know why it worked, I just hooked it up the same way I did a few other times, but she fired up.

Now I have a catastrophic oil leak from the filter, distributer or fuel pump cover on the block I need to contend with.

I need to get it timed as well, runs like crap.

[Yager]

Oh, and thanks for the offer, I might take you up on it someday, but not today as I will be celebrating my victory.