So after a hard 320K miles it’s time to swap out the TJ motor. It’s a 2006 TJ with a 6spd NSG370 Transmission. On top of having all those miles, the motor has been ticking and tocking pretty badly. It leaks oil from the rear main seal, a cylinder 1 misfire, the block is rusted and flaking and I still have the original clutch. Instead of messing around with this motor I figured it made sense to just swap it out. I’ve done a fair amount of work on this Jeep from everything from water pumps and SYE’s, to rear gear and exhaust manifolds but I’ve never swapped a motor before so this will be a learning experience.
Started off by disconnecting all of the electrical connections. I labeled all of the connections with blue tape as I took them off,
For this that don’t know, there are 2 star shaped bolts at 5he top of the transmission bellhousing. There wasn’t enough room to fit a socket and I couldn’t find a star box wrench so I made one. Worked out well enough.
I hope to pull the motor this weekend. I have a couple 2x6’s across the garage and a chain pull that I plan to use to hoist the engine out of Jeep. I hope I have enough room to lift it out easily but we all know how that goes. It’s going to be a pain in the ass because I’ll have to roll the Jeep out from under the engine as it hangs there… should be interesting.
Just waiting on Dead Jeep to come up with a unicorn engine to swap in. In the mean time, the trail rig continues to be the daily. The poor tires are just burning up on the road. I guess it will force me to get new tires next year. Just before I decided to go through with the motor swap I bought a Ultimate 8.8 kit and a Detroit locker for the rear of the trail rig… uhhh daily. As soon as I get this motor swap done, I’m going to remove and replace the AX-15 in the YJ with one from a TJ. The swap is supposed to be an upgrade to the YJ AX-15 plus the YJ tranny is cracked at the tranny mount and leaking like crazy.
