What do you hate most about engine swaps?

[Yav8]

Only two things TIME and MONEY

 

[axisg]

FLUIDS! Like 85GP said, you never get it all out and then as you tilt the motor/trans- out it comes all over everything. So now I use an old driveshaft snout in the end of the trans and I bailing wire it on so it stays in place. The only way to completely drain coolant is to open the block drains on each side. Good luck on an old crusty motor, even if you can reach them. I tried using radiator drains instead of plugs but they rust up too then break. Best I can do now is use lots of anti-seize and a long headed plug just in case the new motor ever has to come out.

x2. Once the motor is in the air something always goes wrong. Antifreeze splashes out the waterpump or one of the heater lines. There is always some kind of oil that leaks out and makes a mess. WATCH THE DAMN AC LINES !! That and the cherry picker always catches on something when moving the motor in or out. So you give it a solid push or tug and the motor swings, fingers get jammed, paint scratched, and overall its just nerve wracking for those couple minutes the motor is in the air.

 

[Blake442]

Thing I hate most... Getting anti-freeze on my hands. I hate it!

Other than that, I love doing motor swaps.

 

[G-Body_Vet]

I always hate that I have to upgrade or paint everything in the process!

 

[Bonnewagon]

I also hate that once the motor is hanging from the hoist- the hoist won't budge! My solution is to push the car out from under the hanging motor. Which brings up another problem. If the hoist legs are extended all the way out, they hit the lower control arms. What I do is before I begin I place two planks on the ground and run the front wheels onto them. That raises the control arms just enough so the legs can clear them and extend all the way under the car. Now the car can be pushed away and the motor lowered down onto a mover's dolly. Fun!

 

[truracer20]

I actually like the cleaning and painting part, to me it adds even more purpose to the swap. Out with the old grimmey and ugly and in with the new. I hate the part where I do stuff out of order. During my last swap I spent an hour installing the headers only to remember I forgot to install the transmission cooler lines...

It is amazing how much coolant a 3.8 holds even after the radiator is out and the hoses are off. As soon as I set that thing on the ground it spewed more than what i drained from the radiator...