Thread: Engine Swap... and more

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I'll add this to get you started thinking about what you'll need....

No matter where you plan to do this, the floor will not be level enough. You MUST start with a level floor and enough room to move all around the car to do your work. I would consider an area 10 ft. x 20 ft. to be the minimum work area. If you'll be using a part of a garage, here's an inexpensive (well, relatively inexpensive in the whole scope of the project) way to begin with a level floor. Lay out an area 8 ft. x 16 ft. in the middle of the work area. Using a 48" level and a nice flat piece of 2 x 4 x 8 ft. piece of lumber standing on edge, find the high point in this area. My garage floor was off by 2 1/4" from front to rear in this size area, sloping toward the street to facilitate water runoff in the garage area.

What you're going to do is shim up the floor to accept 4 sheets of 3/4" or 1", 4 ft. x 8 ft.sheets of composition board to use as a flat, level working surface. For shims, you'll be using pieces of scrap lumber maybe 4"x4" or 3"x3" and stacking them in stacks no more than 6" apart all over your 8 ft x 16 ft. area, using construction glue or cement to glue them to the floor and to each other so they won't move. You'll use zero shims at the high spot and higher and higher shim stacks as you move to the low point. Sheets of old wall paneling will work well for the thinner shims and I've even used one or more pieces of thick manila folders stuck together to get where I need to be. Construct each stack to the proper height using your 48" level as you build each new stack. When you have your stacks completed, glue the composition boards to the stacks and you'll have a fine, level and smooth floor to measure and build from. If you need to hold components in place, make a fixture from scrap metal and wood-screw it to the composition wood floor.

Once you have the car in place on your new floor, level the frame of the car front to rear and side to side with 4 minimum capacity 3-ton high-quality jackstands. Use some of the same material you used to level the garage floor to level the car. Now, choose 2 points on the rear of the frame on each side that are the same distance from the front of the car. These might be holes that are punched into the frame or they might be the corners of a rear crossmember, but they need to be the same point on the car in both places left and right. Drop a plumb-bob down to the floor from each point and make a mark with a carpenter's pencil. Using the flat edge of your piece of lumber you used to level the floor, draw a line all the way across the board from side to side between these 2 points. Drive a nail into the board at each point, leaving about a half-inch of the nail sticking out of the board. These will be your reference points for everything else you do to the car, so be very careful that you do this right.

Now go to the front and choose another 2 points on the front of the frame. Again using your plumb-bob, make marks on the board and run a line across between them. Drive a nail in at each point, leaving 1/2" sticking up.

This is the point at which you find out if you have a player or you don't. Measure carefully front to rear on the left side and front to rear on the right side. Then measure diagonally both ways between the nails. If any measurement is off by more than 1/8", the frame is tweaked and all bets are off until the frame is straightened.