Alright so I spent all of last weekend doing this swap. Took Thursday and Friday off thinking that I could then spend the weekend buttoning up the swap or doing other stuff. Started Thursday morning around 10ish and didn't finish until Sunday evening.
Here she is ready to get her heart ripped out
Getting there
At first I was not going to remove the wiring harness but then thought it might be easier while the engine was out of the truck to get to some of the plugs under and around the sides. Unplugged everything up top and then realized it would be a huge pain to unplug everything from the transmission. That is when I changed my mind again and decided to just leave the harness in the truck.
Ready to be pulled:
I spent the most time trying to get the upper bolts out that hold the transmission to the block. Using long extensions and only having myself, there was a lot of climbing on top of the truck, lining up the sockets, going back under only to have the sockets come off the bolt head. There has gotta be a better way but eventually they all came off.
Got the oily beast out:
You can kind of see the oil on the old engine in the last pic but the head gaskets were leaking like crazy at the back of the heads. Oil everywhere! The coolant I drained also had signs of oil contamination. So this swap was just in time.
Here is the 4.6 ready to get stripped. I have a ton of extras from this engine if anyone needs anything. Ignore the garage btw.
Stripped and ready to be put back together
So everything swapped over pretty easily. You need to use the front cover, camshaft sprocket, intake manifold, flywheel, oil pan, and crank sensor.
Here you can see the front cover bolted on with the intake manifold.
So at this point, I think it was Friday evening, I was pretty tired from pulling the engine and swapping parts from each one. I try and bolt on the oil pan but it appeared to be hitting the oil pickup tube and was about an inch from bolting on. The 4.6 has the oil pickup tube coming from the front cover while the 4.0 has it bolted to the middle of the block. So not knowing what the hell I was missing I started calling people. Tried Lucky8, Brett and Jarek. Thanks guys for taking the time helping me out. Brett suggested just cutting an inch or so off the pickup tube and welding it back together. I ran this by Jarek and he explained how the oil pickup is based off of suction so rather then weld it he suggested flaring one end and brazing it like a plumbing fixture. I figured great idea but will have to wait til tomorrow. I bolted a few more things onto the 4.6 from the 4.0 and called it a night.
The next morning I went back outside and reevaluated how I would do this oil pickup modification. This is when I noticed this dumb ass stud sticking out of the bottom of the block. The 4.6 pickup tube bolts to the stud for support since it runs to the front of the engine. A quick snip with the cutoff wheel fixed this problem and the oil pan bolted right up nice and easy.
Glad that was done and moved on.
Another thing on the 4.6 block is the secondary air injection system. There are tubes that run out of the block on both sides above the exhaust manifolds that need to be closed since the 4.0 does not have this system. A bolt and some jb weld fixes that problem real quick.
So now I have everything bolted up and ready to go back in:
Back in:
Damn bumper is too big
Due to the bumper I couldnt reach the tranny
A lot of shouldering the chain and slowly moving it around, the new engine goes in.
Of course I only had 2 things left. Put the coolant overflow tank back in then bolt up the intake. The crappy old plastic tank decides to break where the lower hose bolts up. Very frustrating after 4 days of working to hear this beast run. Ordered a new one which arrived yesterday. Filled her up with coolant and she started right up.
Drove around for about 20 minutes or so. No codes so far and everything seems to be running smoothly. Not crazy fast but sure is quicker than the 4.0.
It is going to be nice not having oil leak everywhere I go, for now. Can't wait to hit the trails again.