Engine to frame alignment puzzlement

fiddlybits

fiddlybits

Senior Member
Should the front oil pan bolts be over the rear lip of the front crossmember or behind it? I would expect that the entire engine should be behind the cross-member except the pulley...but....

With the hand-crank aligned the oil pan bolts are resting on front cross-member. The front motor mount is just hanging there.

The position of the engine, front to back, is dictated by the main mounts, and there is no adjustment to be made there. Also, the drive-line all mates up perfectly front to back.

The front cross member is a seriously heavy {3/16"?) piece of formed metal that is riveted in and does not show any signs that it has been "distorted".

Before I pull the engine back out and take a portapower and reform the cross-member I'm open to any ideas.
 
The bolts should be behind the cross member, so that they are accessible from below so that the oil pan can be dropped while the engine is in the car. Do you have the rear motor mounts mounted correctly? The open side should be toward the rear of the chassis.
 
Rear mount are where they should be and facing rear.
I did notice that the back of the front cross member leans to the rear. It is not vertical. That does not seem right.
 
The back of the front cross member should be vertical. Could be your frame horns are bent, or maybe the crossmember was replaced at one point and not mounted correctly?

PS. Love tha Balsam Green color of your car!
 
fiddlybits said:
The position of the engine, front to back, is dictated by the main mounts, and there is no adjustment to be made there. Also, the drive-line all mates up perfectly front to back.

The front cross member is a seriously heavy {3/16"?) piece of formed metal that is riveted in and does not show any signs that it has been "distorted".
Click to expand...

The "drive-line" can move fore/aft quite a bit based on the engine so that means very little.

If the rear flange of the front cross member was bent rearward, the front engine support stud would still drop through the hole in the cross member. If not, we need to keep looking for the real cause.

Are there any extra holes in either the frame side members or ends of the front cross member near the rivets?
 
ok... spent about an hour going over the dimensions of the entire car with a tape measure, laser measure and a level. Then went over the same dimensions on my project chassis (future huckster)

The ONLY dimension that is different is the main engine mount to the back of the front cross member. The difference is 3/8". The cross member is riveted in the same location on the frame but the back is not vertical and puts the back of the member 3/8" too far to the rear at the center-line of the chassis and does not clear the oil pan.

I'll pull the engine back out tonight then use the 'jaws of life', sledge hammer or, if need be, just chew on the cross member but I'll get it in the right place.

This would explain the extra "shim" under the front engine mount that was found when I pulled the original engine. It was to raise the front so it did not touch the frame.....and was probably the source of a vibration I could not locate.

The question in my mind is "why...and how...was the front member bent?"
 
I always forget pictures due to greasy hands.

All indications are that the frame has had no changes or repairs.

Pulled engine and did some measuring and marking. Then took out frustrations on cross member with various tools. Straightening the back till vertical was the main thing. Engine clears fine now.
The crossmember in question is like the onr in figure 10 of Steve Puckets article in the Restore, May/June 2007, pg 15. It now resembLes the photo.
 
I had the same problem but it was the rear float-a-motor mounts that let the engine move too far farward. I replaced the rear mounts with the originals and now the pan bolts clear the front cross member as they should.
 
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