AMC360 Engine Swap

Intro
Well it all started inocently enough... after finally breaking down to complete the SOA on my '91 YJ I went down to Freddy to get my new shocks at Rocky Roads. When I got there I saw a posting for an '81 Waggy for sale. I thought this would be a great projectso I took the number and to make a long story short, I had to explain why my new shocks also came with a Waggy? LOL.. no that's not how it happened but you get the point! After looking over the Waggy it was to my dismay that the frame and body were beyondmy current means so I decided to swap the entire drivetrain, 360/727/208/D44/M20, into my YJ. Oh ya.. this was end of April and I thought I'd have theJeep ready for the summer season... with a newborn on the way I was strongly mistaken!

And the fun begins
Let me tell you for those who haven't done it yet. Stripping a Jeep of drivetrain has to be one of the funnest things to do untiluntil you realize all the work required to put another back in! Took me about week of a few hours here and there to get the 4banger, tranny & xfercase out and clean the engine bay of mounts and brackets. Used a cutting wheel to remove the old engine mounts and a grinding wheel to clean everything up. Pretty straight forward, just make sure you checkeverything before you attempt to haul the engine out!







May the War Waggon RIP...
Tearing appart the Waggy was bitter sweet. OK enough sobbing... haha. I had the Chilton's manual on hand as well as some great info from other boards on the net so I traced and labeled all electrical connections. This was the most important part. Having the FSM & wiring diagrams for the YJ helped me match up and bypass the connections to the computer which was now gone. Again pulling the engine was the easy part. Oh ya, I spent so much time makin sure I've checked everything engine and transmission wise I forgot to disassemble the shifting leaver for the transfercase. FYI: Engine will not come up before this is removed...hehe!!






And it fits...
Without going into too much detail here's how it went... I was a bit lazy and since it was my first swap I bought the engine mounts for this conversion from AA. They were great and made placement of the engine easy. I bolted them to the engine and lowered into place, measured, stood back, measured again, stood back measured again, you get it? Just so I was sure there was enough room I rough mounted the grill and rad as well. Once I was happy with placement I tack welded the mounts in place and pulled the engine.

Now since I planned on using the electric fuel pump in the gas tank a few things had to be done. First I had to remove the mechanical fuel pump on the engine and bolt in a fuel pump block off plate. Now since the electric pump was pushing fuel to the old fuel injected engine at approx. 40psi, I also had to get a fuel bypass regulator to reduce flow to about 6psi. I bought a Mallory unit from Summit Racing, ran some new fuel line to the carb and it was golden.

The wiring was a far different beast. With both manuals it took me a while to get acclimated and I spent about a weeks "after work" time just tracing wires and comparing between the 2 manuals. On a few occasions it was good that I had my old engine and harness for real life reference. I don't have any pics of the engine bay with all the wires cleaned & tucked away so don't think I drive it like this...LOL!




Conclusion...
I wrote this well after the swap was done so there are details missing... I haven't decided what I'm going to do for my gauges yet, but I'll have the writeup when I do it. I installed a B&M ratchet shifter to man the 727 and fabed a shifter for the transfercase. I also had to fab up a transfercase mount since the 208 didn't match up with the mounting holes in the stock skid.