1979 Malibu 6.0 T56 Magnum

[Streetbu]

That's the trans I'm saving my pennies for! Close ratio FTW!

 

[Northernregal]

Please post lots of pics when the trans is in. Also something I'm looking at.

 

[dfast1]

looking very good

 

[Longroof79]

Nice work, Grant.
Your Malibu is getting much love and nice upgrades..
Keep up the great work.

 

[Grant Smith]

So here’s where some big hiccups came into play. When I went to set the motor and trans into place for the first time I fought the mounts for 3 weekends in a row before I figured out it was the polyurethane inserts I got from Holley. Not blaming them, must’ve just been a bad batch or something but they were preventing the motor from sitting flush all the way in the mounts. Got really frustrated at this point just because I wasted this much time fighting these mounts. I called Holley and they sent me new ones out no charge, but I had ordered ones from Summit which were energy suspension and they ended up working out perfect. The motor literally dropped right on and I was able to push the bolts through by hand.

The old poly mounts that I fought.. Literally tried everything. I left everything loose so I could shake the motor and pry it which ever way I needed too and nothing worked. Double checked the mounts on the frame pads even though I had drilled/mounted them exactly how Holley said too.

Here’s some pictures of it before I just recently pulled it out to fix a couple of things.

It was a huge relief to finally see it sitting between the frame rails.
Here’s my next problem that I have yet to figure out, The motor is hitting the firewall on the passenger side. The only thing I can think of or to put the blame on is the notorious “gbody tolerances”. Even then it seems excessive to be touching like that. I would understand and think it’s reasonable if it was tight but something seems off.

Any ideas??

 

[fleming442]

It's not the body's fault. The motor mounts are wrong somewhere.


LS swaps are easy!

 

[superbon54]

I hate to say it, but if you don’t want to change motor/trans mounts, you can loosen the body bolts and slide the tub back a little.

 

[melloelky]

if you look those mounts are one hole to far back on the chassis.

 

[superbon54]

if you look those mounts are one hole to far back on the chassis.

Good eye, I think you may be correct.

 

[melloelky]

the rule of thumb is one mounting eyelet should be handing off the front of the cross member at the bottom.