I permanently replaced the starter bolts with studs and use that for alignment. Also leave your stiffener brackets off until you get the two close to mated. Another trick to give you more room to wrestle the engine back in there is to leave the lower half of your motor mounts out until you have the bell housing bolts started. I leave them out until I have the two fully secured together, then lift back up and install the lower portion. Only done a couple of these....starting to get the hand of it. <img src="/forums/images/graemlins/lol.gif" alt="" />

~Darin <img src="/forums/images/graemlins/baby.gif" alt="" />

The bolts have really worked well for me in the past as well. Did you put a new clutch disk in it this time? I will share a quick story, when putting the motor back my 1990 truck, the new toyota clutch disk which came with the alignment tool, was for a 2 wheel drive. The difference between a 2 and 4 wheel clutch is ONE spline, this was incorrectly packaged @ toyota and cost me a day of trying to get it together. Good Luck

Thanks for everyone's input!


The only suggestion so far that I haven't tried is the using the extra long bolts to guide everything together. I am using the tranny jack, load leveler, removing the bellhousing stiffners, using the correct clutch alignment tool,removing the lower half of the motor mounts, and I have one stud for my starter instead of using two like was suggested.

That leaves me to one last question... When everything is aligned like it is supposed to be, will the bellhouse and block go together snug or do I need to use the bolts to snug them together. It seems the last couple of times I've done this, things slide together within 1/4 inch or so, then use the bolts to snug everything up.

The biggest help so far has been the load leveler for others future reference.

Hmm...that made me think of something. What if I put the clutch disc in backwards? I will definately have to check on that when I work on it next. I know the two sides are not identical, so which side goes toward the transmission...The side that has the springs, etc. sticking out or is it the flatter side?

Edit: Looked at the FSM and the flatter side goes toward the flywheel.

As someone else mentioned, make sure the tranny is in N, so it can rotate a bit if the splines aren't linned up. In fact, I think you can put the tranny in gear and turn the output of the tranny(or xfercase if not removed) a bit back and forth to help get the splines linned up.

Update: I finally got the little beast in there!!!! Woo Hoo <img src="/forums/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" />

Thanks for everyones suggestion because I used everyone one of them!