torque converter trouble

[shadowjeep]

when i was bolting the engine and trans together i noticed the torque wouldnt turn freely behind the plate. i was afraid i didnt have the converter properly seated, then i removed the engine again, checked it for mistakes. the converter was seated right, re installed the engine with the same problem. is there a trick to this im missing or are this things just natuarly a pain to put in.

[billyrb]

When you mate up the engine and transmission, you have to leave a little space before tightening the bolts. The converter has little weights mounted to the face that will bind against the rear face of the flexplate. When you tighten it down without aligning it properly, it pushes the snout of the rear of the converter into the front seal of the transmission. if you tighten it down hard enough, you can damage / blow the front pump.

You need to get everything set together loosely, then go under the jeep and rotate the converter by hand so that it aligns with ALL of the bolt holes, and start each of the bolts. Then, once it's all aligned, you can then bolt the bellhousing to the engine tightly.

[shadowjeep]

how much space should be between the converter and the flex plate once the engine is flush with the belhousing of the tranny? there doesnt seem to be any at all. i checked several times to make sure the converter was seated properly.

[will e]

Are you using the same engine/tranny/flexplate you had before?

When I bolted my 401 to my TF727 I could move the torque converter back and forth 'about 1/8 inch'. I say about because I didn't actually measure. It wasn't enough movement to be able to reposition the orientation of the Torque converter (I couldn't spin it freely due to the weights hitting the flex plate) but I could 'spin' it back and forth.

I did make the mistake of 'starting' the first 3 bolts and then tightening the 4th. This drew the converter forward and pushed the 'started' bolts into something which make it almost impossible to turn the torque converter.

[shadowjeep]

the engine came out of an 85, the 360 is slightly older, im putting it in a 87. all the bolt patterns on the tranny and 360 block is the same, i just hope that isnt the problem.

[will e]

Were the flex plates the same? Was there a flex plate on the 'new' engine? If the new engine was attached to a TH400 then there is a bushing on the crank that you needed to remove. This would not be typical in an 85 but swap outs do happen....

[shadowjeep]

finally found the problem, i didnt have the torque converter lined up just right with the flex plate. i had to pull the engine again, but i did find a slight bend in the plate that i didnt see before and swapped out the plates. lined it up and marked it for good measure and finally got it bolted up. i knew it was something small, just took some time to find out what. there was next to no space to move the torque converter at all.

[jsinajeep]

I hate to pull the engine more than once, but sometime you just think you need to and it pay. Thank for posting what you found.