Trouble stabbing motor!!!

We are in the middle of replacing the motor in my buddies 92 xj right now, and we are having trouble getting the new motor stabbed. His rig is a 92 and the motor is from a 93 xj. We reused his flexplate, and conver. The issue we are having is that when we get the dowel pins lined up and start making up the the bolts that go through the dowels, something gets in a bind and will not let the motor turn over by hand. The converter will turn like it's not touching the flexplate and you can line up the converter holes that way, but the motor is in a solid immovable bind till you pull it completely apart from the tranny. Any help would be greatly appreciated!

i made the same mistake a few months ago, make sure the torque converter is on ALL THE WAY, I was sure it was on and a front pump later I got it right :smsoap:

Yeah, if the torque converter isn't fully seated you will bind up, and if you go to far the torque converter and/or the transmission pump can be DAMAGED.

Pull it apart. When the torque converter is fully seated it will usually make like three loud clunks as it seats into the transmission. You should have to move the torque converter slightly forward toward the flexplate when bolting them together.

The converter isnt binding up with the flexplate at all. the converter can spin freely. The converter was never removed or moved during the removal. The flexplate acts like the teeth are grabbing something. We are going to pull the motor back forward this afternoon and see what we can see.

Never heard it called stabbing

Heath t said:

The converter isnt binding up with the flexplate at all. the converter can spin freely. The converter was never removed or moved during the removal. The flexplate acts like the teeth are grabbing something. We are going to pull the motor back forward this afternoon and see what we can see.

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check the converter anyway, just separating te motor and trans is sometimes enough to pull the converter out, depending on how it was indexed. It should be noticeably behind the front edge of the bellhousing. Try turning it while pushing it into the trans.

Question: the donor 93 the motor came from--automatic or manual transmission? If you don't know, then check the end of the crank for the possible presence of a pilot bearing/bushing.

joe_peters said:

Question: the donor 93 the motor came from--automatic or manual transmission? If you don't know, then check the end of the crank for the possible presence of a pilot bearing/bushing.

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that's also a good thought.

It was something stuck in-between the flexplate and bellhousing.

I knew it was not the converter because you could turn the converter by hand with no resistance. If it would have been the converter the converter would have been stuck too.

I had checked for a pilot bearing whenmwe picked the motor up. I got bit by that years ago!


Thanks!