Bolting A4LD to engine

[Bill Blue]

What is the proceedure? I slid the bell housing to within about 1" of the engine. Rotated the engine while lifting and pushing on the tranny. Slid on another 1/2" (or so). Additional pushing while turning the engine over got the gap down to about 1/8". Cannot get it any closer. Is it okay to start the bolt tightening process, or should the bell housing/engine gap zero before tightening bolts?

Does Ford use a spacer between the engine and bell housing? A 1/8" spacer might cure my problem.
Bill

 

[Aladin Sane]

Are you sure the torque converter was fully seated? No expert, but from reading in prep for putting my c4 back on the motor, that seems to be a major cause of things not coming together flush.

 

[DanR]

Does Ford use a spacer between the engine and bell housing? A 1/8" spacer might cure my problem.
Bill

Yes you need a Block Plate! !! AND it is about 1/8" thick.....

 

[Aladin Sane]

Yep, forgot about that. Here is the one on my 302. More like a 16th thickness.

 

[Bill Blue]

Pretty sure I got the torque convertor seated. I found a Ford service manual that had instructions on installing the tranny. The TC seats in a two step fashion and that is what I did. That left the 1/8" gap. Interesting that the manual did not mention a block plate!

Now I'm off to make a block plate. Luckily, I have a sheet of pretty hard aluminum. Should work just fine.

Bill

 

[Bill Blue]

The aluminum was a gift from friend and is being re-purposed. Read that it is old and lived an interesting life. That is a polite way of say that I followed the wrong scratch mark while sawing out the plate. So I have a super deluxe two piece block plate! It will work just fine.
One more baby step of a thousand mile journey.

Bill

 

[Bill Blue]

Got'er done! Took me about four tries to get the tranny bolted to the engine.


Bill