I managed to buy and install a Grand Cherokee flex plate on the rebuilt 4.0 engine I installed in an XJ Cherokee. I didn't realize it until the engine was all situated and I was unsuccessfully attempting to bolt the flex plate and torque converter together. I have the manifolds and most of the accessories bolted on to the engine already, but now everything has to come off again so I can pull the engine back out.

Boy, if I had a nickel for every time that happened to me....

I'd still be flat busted broke.

OP, my sympathies.

Atb least you'll have something to keep you busy.

I've come to realize when it comes to vehicles, you will inevitably do something stupid to prolong your project.

pull the transmission and transfer case instead.

That is a possibility I hadn't considered. I may just do that, thanks.

Wait, you serious? You pulled out the engine? Oh hell naw.



 

My buddy bought a crate motor off a guy for his Grand Cherokee.
Did the swap and found after lowering the engine in that the bell housing is a different size on the XJ motor he actually had bought.


I later scored a NIB Mopar XJ crate motor for $600

Oh man, what a score.

I'm jealous.

Here's on for you:

Friend and I rebuilt 305 chevy engine for an '83 El Camino.

Tried to have the existing tranny rebuilt, but was unsuccessful getting the tranny, a Th250, back from the rebuilder.

Said fuck it and bought an already rebuilt Th350 from someone else.

Put that shit all back together, babied it around town for a while.

Everything seemed fine, so on my way home through rural OH around 2 a.m. I floored it from a stop light.

Engine over-revved, no power to the wheels though.

Pulled off the road, walked home about 15 miles in the dark. We didn't have cell phones and shit back then.

Turns out we installed the flex plate backwards, causing the snout on the torque converter to not fully engauge on the transmission front pump drive. The snout sheared the front pump drive off, tranny went back for ANOTHER rebuild.

Lesson learned, read the fucking manual.

If you had just read the manual that would have never happened

 

I may or may not have once dropped and installed different transmissions in the same truck several times in one day once.  

Well, whyfer ya done did that?

On the contrary....
One of my oldest and best friends, not book smart, studio class guitarist.
Every Winter the local snow plow operators get in a jam with broken transmissions.
They will drop off several transmissions, Moe looks like Forestt Gump putting the rifle together.
He tears a bunch apart, puts the good parts in one pile, makes it work.

Built 460 .030

Mocked it all up with pushrod length checker. Hand turned the motor. All checked out
Put motor in the car and fired it to break in cam.
Turns out the hydraulic lifters pumped up and the rear most rockers hit the drip fingers on the valve cover.
Wiped the cam.

Had the longblock redone. During reassembly caught a the deathflu. Came out to garage to finish the assembly and the engine bag had condensation in it. All the lifter holes had rust in them.

Pulled it, tore down the engine and used a scotchbrite and Gibbs to clean it up. Reassembled.

Drove the car for 8 months and wrapped it around a tree at 65mph.

Wiped Cam video

Tannerite will get it apart faster.

I haven't done anything yet. I came inside and started sulking as soon as I realized I was boned.




Is that not a good idea?

You're probably right, but I'm in the suburbs .

Don't feel bad OP, stuff happens.  Back when I was in high school, my best buddy's dad owned a wrecker service and we hung out at their shop on the weekends wrenching on our cars.  We had build a new bad-ass small block for my buddy's 72 Camaro and were just about ready to drop it in.  The problem was, they didn't have an engine hoist because one of their wreckers had dual booms and they'd always just use the wrecker boom swung out over the side of the truck.  We couldn't get the wrecker beside the car inside the shop so it had to be done outside, but it was raining pretty hard that night.  We'd been busting our asses and spent every dime we had on that motor and there was NO way we weren't gonna hear it run, so we decided to get the wrecker in position, push the car outside, throw the motor in real quick and push it back inside.  We did exactly that and were completely drenched by the time we got the car pushed back inside the shop.  So there we were, soaked to the bone admiring our handiwork and deciding what to do next, when I looked up above the workbench and there was a flexplate hanging on a nail.  I said "Uh Joe, what's that flexplate for?" and he just shook his head and started laughing.  

So yeah, at least you remembered to put one in...