Hot Rods Your first engine swap - Remember when?

First swap at 14yrs. old was putting in a 265" sbc into a '37 Chevy 2dr sedan that I pulled out of a backyard
for $10, including the black widow spiders! Made my own adapter to mate the sbc to the '37 trans.
Painted it with surplus yellow aircraft paint in my driveway. Here is a picture of it alongside my 2nd
car, the orange '40 Chevy. Great times....1962 in Phx....

 

1963, My first engine swap was pretty easy, well maybe not that easy, (remember a group of kids, no adult help) I bought a ($200) 57 Chevy 210 2 door minus engine/ tranny before I was 16. I went to junkyard looking for a V8 and ended up with a tri-carb 348 with OD 3 speed trans, (complete takeout) for $175. changed rear end pumpkin to 4:11 (($15) Spray can rebuild and chrome air cleaners, purchased mechanical progressive carb linkage. (had been reading Hot Rod magazine for years already) It bolted right in, hardest job was cutting the hole in floor for Hurst shifter, the exhaust was a minor problem, the pipes from headers (hedman) to mufflers/downturns, few other small things. Sun Tach, 3 gauge panel, made 15" reverse wheels in shop class, recap street slicks, My friends and I put this all together outside, no garage at this time and not that many tools, but we "Got R Dun", I drove it on my 16th birthday after passing test in my sisters 58 Ford, that car launched my life into hot rodding, all this with money saved from my paper route. I was destined to be a carnut. My Mom rode on the back of my Dad's motorcycle right up to my arrival, we all went to the races starting for me at 3 months old. Dad had a Midget racer. I was/am a Lucky guy.

 

There was an aptitude test everyone in my senior class had to take at my high school back in '61. It was supposed to determine what sort of work we might or might not be good at when we got out. According to my results, I had little mechanical ability at all. I was convinced that the test was bogus. This was just about the time that I needed to rebuild the engine in my '48 Ford tudor. My step-father helped me get the engine out using a rope fall hung off a beam in the barn. We set the engine down on a two wheel trailer and he told me to wait until he got home from work the next day and we'd tear it down. Next morning, he went to work and I decided to get a jump on this tear down business. I got the heads off and while I was attempting to roll the engine into position to get at the oil pan, I rolled it too far back on the trailer which tipped. Before I could get out of the way, the engine rolled right down my left arm pinning me to the ground. It didn't break anything but the studs had a really good grip on my arm. I laid out there for four hours before my Mom found me. She called a neighbor and the two of them got that hunk of iron off. To say my step-father was displeased wouldn't even begin to cover it. I learned a lot of new words that day. I have gotten better as I've gotten older.

 

Danny,
First swap was in 1978, and not much of a swap. I was only 17, not much skill, no tools, old tiny garage with dirt floor.
Had bought a 1960s Impala Convertible from original owner.
Car had a 283 glide, bought another 283 with either 327 or possibly 307 heads for 45 bucks off older neighbour.
He helped me pull engine and swap in donor engine.
Cars OEM 283 had blown a head gasket, or cracked head. Not sure why I didnt fix it, high miler i believe so easier to swap in lower mile engine.
Engine was great..this car sucked off line but after 30 mph she was okay..

 

1966 I was 16 and hot rod crazy. On my 16th birthday my dad told me about a 50 ford crestliner for $50 with a cracked block, dragged it home. I bought 3 different flatheads before I found one with no cracks...a 53 Merc 255 for $15. My dad and I rebuilt it and we put it in the 50 ford...a straight across swap. I drove it up to the mailbox a few times but the old sedan felt way too new.
One of my classmates had an uncle with a black 41 ford two door....no engine and he wanted $24 for it. Got it home and my dad helped me install the Merc motor into the 41. It went pretty good 'till we got to the clutch lilnkage. Somehow we got the clutch shaft wrong but didn't realize it till the job was all done so my dad crawled under the car with a rose bud on the torch and heated and twisted that linkage 'til it worked.

 

BRB in a '23 T. Fall of 1968.

I did not do the original install if you could call it that. The car showed up at my place after midnight running open manifolds with the engine setting on 4x4s and chained down. What a good time we had with that car.

 

GMC 248 straight six into a 50 Chevy pickup that I broke a piston in and then blew a rod. Looking back I could have fixed that 216 for about 25 bucks then. I never did get it running right and sold it before I got drafted. I had Bought a Brush buggy that was a cut down 54 Buick chassis with a great running V8 but hooking that engine to the Chevy transmission got out of my price range as soon as I started looking for an adapter.

 

I never used trees to do a swap, but for my first engine pull and replace, I was actually able to rent a 1 ton wrecker from the local Ford dealership. The manager was going to charge me $2.00, but when I told him that I already had the engine running, he not only didn't charge me for the use of the wrecker, but offered me a job. This was in 1958.
Back then I also used home made tripods, and this wasn't too bad on a level property, the problem being that I had to move the car around to spot the engine in the proper position.
Bob

 

How did the driveshaft turn out in regard to balance? Although there is nothing unique about welding something that thick with a torch, that would have been a serious amount of heat.
Bob

 

The cost of adapters, was the reason I always used the engine, matching transmission, and sometimes even the rear end (in the case of my Buick swaps). The only one instance where I used the Hurst front mounts, was putting my 53 Olds into my 34 Ford pickup. In that swap, I used the hydramatic, and had to cut the X, and weld in reinforcement channel, on which I bolted in the rear transmission crossmember.
I did them in my back yard, and it was a miracle that the jobs turned out as well as they did. I didn't own any welders, but I lived next to, and worked part time in a Welder's supply store, so I had access to anything welding related.
Bob

 

off topic but swapped out the 200 6 cyl from a 68 fairlane for the 400 m and trans from a 77 ltd wagon. stripped off all smog eqpt. refreshed the heads slipped in a performer cam and 4 bbl intake with an afb and dual exhaust. fit surprisingly well and made the old girl haul ass.

 

the year was 1970 and I traded a worn out motorcycle for a 1958 Edsel. It was a complete car with the E410 and auto transmission. With help from an older friend we swapped the radiator, engine, transmission and rear end into a worn out 1956 Ford pickup. That old truck was a lot of fun actually.

 

Hello there; I remember doing that driveshaft quite well. My concern at the time was that I didn’t want to shorten the front end, as I did not want it to Jill poke the ground if it failed. And at the back end, it necked down to a smaller diameter at the yoke; the last 3-4 inches. So, just ahead of the neck I wrapped a piece of paper around so I could draw a square line around. I then used a hacksaw to cut out about 6” in length. I then lined it up, tacked in 4 spots, and re-checked. I then went once around welded with no rod, and then two passes with a rod. So in fact I had butt welded the tubing together and the weld on the yoke was not touched. It went back in, didn’t vibrate, and I put many miles on that driveshaft! Lots of burn-outs and drove all the way to Saskatchewan! The things you can get away with at 16 years old.

 

My first swap was a 216 six cylinder into a 52 Chevy Panel truck. Real;ly not much because the truck already had a 216 in it. Pulled the entire front end off of the truck and had the old 216 sitting in the driveway, after the first day. My parents were not impress with my mechanical skills along with the neighbors due to the fact that the driveway filled with all of my fathers tools, a broken swing set, and oil all over the hard surface, was a little hard to take. By the second day every thing had a new coat of paint, black firewall, black inner fenders, orange engine. The third day I installed the 216, installed the front sheet metal and hood. This truck look great from the doors forward. Wired everything up and started up the 216, only to find that it had a rod knock and and that the oil and antifreeze were mixing it up in the oil pan. My father came out and asked me if I had asked the previous owner why he pulled the motor in the first place. i replied, "no I didn't ask him" and my father said, "I think you know the answer". I spent the next two days cleaning up everything, putting all of the tools back, taking the broken swing set to the junk yard, and selling the truck to another kid, making about 5 bucks in my favor (less labor). Live and learn.

 

My first ever engine swap was something I'm not very proud of. I was pulling the blown rotary out if a very off topic Mazda RX7 engine was swinging and I needed to disconnect the wiring harness from the computer inside the car. Didn't know how or where or how hard it would be. so being 16, an idiot kid, impatient, and lazy I decided to chop the harness itself off at the firewall. I had a new engine (front half of a car) on the way that was supposed to include everything. Long story short the front half and new engine was more like a something that was sitting in a wrecking yard and had been picked over. Had the engine but didn't have the harness I thought it would.
Struggled for years to get it back together. Failing miserably and sold the car not running a few years later.

The one plus of the ordeal is that it helped turn me off of imports and computer controlled stuff and I Soon turned to hotrods after that. I've since swamped a number of engines with no troubles. Always remembering my glaring idiotic mistakes of the past and trying to learn from them.

-Adam

Sent from my rotary phone using The H.A.M.B. mobile app

 

Oh do I ever remember my first engine swap!! It was what I call baptism by fire. I had very few tools, and very little knowledge of how to do a swap, or the ramifications of doing a huge change in drivetrain!
I owned a '40 Chev coupe I bought from a coworker just out of high school. It was all stock, and I drove it home for $50 in 1968. I always thought it would get a SBC swap, but I had my '57 Chev Belair, so no hurry. Then my best friend, who lived next door, asked if I wanted to buy his dad's '59 Imperial! His dad had rolled it over that weekend, and told me it could be mine for $150. Bruce thought it would be great to swap it into my '40 Chev coupe, and of course the price was enticing.
I bought the Imperial, and we pushed it into his dad's garage to strip engine, trans, and rear axle out. Then grabbed whatever else we might need, and called the wrecking yard to come take the rest, and got $25! We then stripped the engine/ trans out of the coupe, and began lowering the 413 Mopar and torqueflite into the bay. It was actually not a bad fit, and the old cup type motor mounts were easy to adapt to the '40 frame rails. We built up a crossmember for the trans, and in one day it was sitting in the car self supported! That's where things ended as far as easy went.
We stood back and admire our work, and began thinking about how to finish, when we noticed how low the front sat. My '40 was a Master Deluxe with control arm suspension, and there was no suspension left! Totally bottomed out. So we grabbed some spring spacers, and began to twist them into the coils, which regained maybe 1.5" of height.
Next we pulled the rear axle, and cut the perches off the '59 Chrysler axle. The Imperial was actually just slightly wider and fit under the coupe, but the coupe's axle sat too far forward, so we drilled the perch alignment hole farther forward to move it back.
So now we had it all under the car, but with stock suspension front and rear! Over the next few days we got things wired, or more like Jerry rigged, since my old car was 6 volt, and we haywired it to run 12 v. for what we needed. I found a bigger radiator at the wrecking yard, and we managed to squeeze it in also. Used the pushbutton shifter mounted under the dash to choose gears. (Later my dad brought some tubing home from work, and I made a tubing floor mount to locate the shifter beside me.) We shortened the driveline ourselves, so nothing balanced, but somehow it didn't vibrate, or we didn't notice it!
Once it was running, we headed out for my first test drive. Anxious to see how it did, we maybe made it 4 or 5 blocks before mashing the throttle to light the tires up! Somehow nothing broke, and it responded well. But even going straight it didn't drive very well, and the first curves were pretty white knuckled with a very firm front suspension, but rear that was much too soft and bouncing around like an amusement park ride!
But good enough for us to hit the local cruise scene the next weekend. It was impressive power, although a one wheel wonder with no posi. Still when you're 18 yrs. old and full of yourself, a '40 coupe with over 300 hp and tons of torque, you're kind of the big dog at the local cruise places!

Eventually the stock suspension had to go away. I bought a '58 Chev truck axle complete, and we swapped it in front. Then took the rear springs out, and made up some heavier leaf sets to stack on the main and get the back stiffer. And finally added shocks at the rear, which was a major improvement!
But the military called, and when I got home I was over the coupe, and wanted a lighter, faster car, so sold it to a friend in 1971, who still has it today, but all the original drivetrain sits in a corner of his shop, as he had the car completely redone to SBC, TH400, and 9" Ford. I've tried to get the old engine and trans from him, but he likes having it sitting there for some reason?

 

My '57 Ford was my first foray into engine swap land. As purchased, it had a 272/3 speed that was constantly breaking down. Finally I got it really dialed in and it was humming, and the next day while cruising down I-95 in Maryland, the oil pressure light came on, quickly followed by smoke and a tire-locking engine seize at 70 mph. A later autopsy would show the cam torn in 4 pieces, multiple pretzelized pushrods and obliterated lifters, and a rod that came apart, blew out the piston skirt, and got pinched between the block and crank counterweight. After a miserable experience with the Y Block, I was not keen on dropping another in. My friend had a 59 Fury that he had swapped a 383/Torqueflight in, and that was the car that was always running right and went everywhere, so I decided that that was what I wanted. He took care of the first swap for the most part, though I helped, but it was never really right. It ran hot and the engine was crammed forward in the engine compartment to clear the pan and frame. It just didn't fit well and left a lot to be desired, so after a couple years, I decided I would pull it out and try myself.

One winter from college I pulled the engine and try out and got to working. It was a long, slow, process with crude tools, and for the stuff that needed better equipment I brought the parts to the student machine shop in college to do. But I got it done. I made a custom oil pan, engine mounts, trans mount... and from that point on the car always ran the right way.

Looking back, I'm amazed at the amount of work that got done under those circumstances. A 110v flux-core MIG, a 15 gallon oilless compressor from Sears, a right angle grinder from Harbor Freight, a sawzall, and some basic hand tools. All in an unheated 2 car garage behind my Mom's house with 1 electrical outlet and 2 incandescent light bulbs. I thought I was ready for the big time when I got a bullet heater and a florescent work light. I can look back fondly on those times now when I have a legitimate work space with serious tools and equipment. Just a stepping stone to bigger and better things, learning a ton as I went along.

 

1956 Buick nail head in my 29.

 

First swap was around ‘68. It was a ‘64 chevy II that got a 302 V8 and a 4spd.
Did it in my parents garage and it took way too long for them to appreciate it. Had a few issues along the way, like trying to mod the bell crank which was made from hardened steel and would just not cut to be modified. That took a week at my buddies father’s machine shop. Then there was the issue of the bell housing. The only one the would work was from a ‘57 chevy which had the bell crank ball on the side. Who knew ? Then there was the exhaust and headers in the wheel wells. Man, one thing after another. And just when it was done, with a 5:38 gear and 30” D5s, it blew the the differential cap and destroyed the fun.
But what a ride before that for a kid at 19 !

 

My first engine swap in 1960 was a 1949 Olds engine into a 1952 Ford. Subsequent swaps that I can remember have included 409 Chevy into 1951 Ford, 327 Chevy into Austin Healy Sprite, 327 Chevy into VW Bug, 409 into 1962 Chevy Impala, 427 Chevy into 1968 Chevy Nova, and last swap was SOHC 427 Ford into 1963 Ford Galaxy. Last swap was in 1974.

The 427 (closed chamber L-88) into Nova swap replaced a 283, and was the easiest, and probably the most satisfactory. Obviously, strictly a drop-in deal.

 

396 home rebuild in place of a 283. What a feeling to hear it run, then to drive the car. I was 18. Kind of like getting laid for the first time, only better.

 

'57 Chevy, out with the 235 and in with a 283. A 17 year old learning about the differences between the two...now, I need a different flywheel....now, I need a different bell housing...now, I need different throttle linkage....luckily, back then there were still '57s languishing in lots of junkyards, not to mention back yards.

 

It was 1957 or early 1958 and I was 14 years old. I picked up a 33 Ford 5 window in East LA for $75.00. It ran but just barely. An older friend brought it home and I replaced the 21 stud engine and trans with a 59AB and a 40 side shift transmission. A few years later I swapped the flathead for a 265 Chev, then later put a 327 in it. Changing flathead motors wasn't much of a challenge and putting a SBC in an early Ford wasn't much of a challenge, especially if you were using the Ford transmission. All this was done with a few hand tools. The only welding required was the notch in the firewall for the distributor and a neighbor did that for me with an acetylene outfit and some coat hangers.

 

Same thing when my buddy swapped a 327 into his '66 Nova that had a 6 and 3 on the tree. The V8 had an automatic, what did two 17 year old know about a pilot bushing? Then came a "built" 289 into my '65 Falcon. Brand new Sig Erson solid lifter cam. Longest 20 minutes of my life breaking in the cam.

 

Oh boy, I remember well. Summer vacation 1958. Was hanging out in my friend's wrecking yard helping out. Decided to pull the flattie out of my '40 coupe and "drop" an Olds and hydro in it. Had a couple wrenches and a cutting torch and access to a lot of cars. Got the '49 Merc rear end and springs in fairly easily and shoehorned the engine and trans in. Naturally the hydro turned out to be bad (that's why folks junked Oldsmobiles) and after going through 2 or 3 more equally dead ones, I finally gave up and parked the '40 in the dead car line. Did make a couple 1st and 2nd gear passes though.

 

Speaking of pilot bushings, as a kid I learned the hard way that you have to put a little grease in it before sticking your tranny back in. Irritating squeal. Had to pull transmission again just to put a dab of grease in there.

 

I was just a kid with a $100.00 '56 Chevy Bel Air sedan... out with the smokin' 235 and in with a 327 I salvaged from a '62 Impala wagon. Added headers, Cherry Bombs, a 4 speed, '65 Mustang bucket seats and a one piece fiberglass nose. MAN what a difference! I've never been the same since!

 

I had replaced an engine in my 390 Fairlane with a like engine out of a 390 Comet so I guess that was not an actual engine swap as far as hot rodding goes. So I guess my first real engine swap was when I first bought my 32 Ford coupe back around 1974. It was just a body and frame that I was told previously ran an Oldsmobile engine which was now gone. So a fellow worker I knew sold me a worn out 67 Mustang 289/auto. I decided I wanted a Ford in a Ford so I pulled the engine, trans and rearend out of the Mustang and engineered it into my coupe frame. Even used the steering gear/column out of the Mustang. Put the bucket seats in a Model A I had and sold the Model A, junked what was left of the 'stang. It was a fun learning experience that I would have gone about in a different way today. I mounted it too low and not far enough back so I had to rig up an electric radiator fan. I found out the little small block Fords are a bit longer than the Chevy counterparts and thats why so many people used the Chevy transplant. Putting a 348 W motor in my 34 pickup was more work but came out better.

 

I've told this story before...
Summer of '69 I was 17 years old. Bought an engineless 48 Chev ex-drag car for $50. Found a running V8 '57 Chev 4 door for $125. A couple buddies and some beer I stole from dad...and 3 weekends later I was driving the '48 with a 283/3spd.
A happy, hippy hotrodjack


My high school girlfriend modeling the finished product