Update 11/24/25 Prepping the engine
The crate motor came pre-filled with engine oil, something I was NOT expecting! The only reason I thought to check this was because over the weekend, I was putting gear lube inside my 1-tons, and when I went to fill the front Mopar UD60, I was shocked to find that it was already full! I'm glad that I check it before flipping the engine around or pulling the pan, as this would have been a spectacular mess on my garage floor...
I need to flip the motor on the stand to get the oil pan swapped, as well as the oil filter adapter. I pulled the intake and put some tape down over the intake openings to keep crude and dust out. Even though the Speedway Motors Hemi Lift plate covers the intake ports, I figured this was a good bit of insurance.
You can see some more engine-related items once you get the intake off. The red arrow above shows the VVT control solenoid. The blue arrows are pointing to the MDS-plugs. Had this been a take-out engine, these would be MDS control solenoids and would have some wires attached (green arrows below):
One of the things I least look forward to on engine work is flipping the motor on the stand. I'm a big guy, and am plenty beefy for this, but after having a cylinder head almost crush my foot at the ripe ol' age of 15, I've hated it ever since. What had happened was the "pin" that keeps the center plate stable wasn't in, and as I started torquing the head bolts down, it spun around and dumped a 906 casting right where my foot was. I was able to move my foot fast enough to prevent it from getting crushed by the leading edge, but it still gave me a nasty bruise (and likely a broken toe or two).
Thankfully, this flip went uneventfully and I'll start making the necessary updates over the next few days...
The crate motor came pre-filled with engine oil, something I was NOT expecting! The only reason I thought to check this was because over the weekend, I was putting gear lube inside my 1-tons, and when I went to fill the front Mopar UD60, I was shocked to find that it was already full! I'm glad that I check it before flipping the engine around or pulling the pan, as this would have been a spectacular mess on my garage floor...
I need to flip the motor on the stand to get the oil pan swapped, as well as the oil filter adapter. I pulled the intake and put some tape down over the intake openings to keep crude and dust out. Even though the Speedway Motors Hemi Lift plate covers the intake ports, I figured this was a good bit of insurance.
You can see some more engine-related items once you get the intake off. The red arrow above shows the VVT control solenoid. The blue arrows are pointing to the MDS-plugs. Had this been a take-out engine, these would be MDS control solenoids and would have some wires attached (green arrows below):
One of the things I least look forward to on engine work is flipping the motor on the stand. I'm a big guy, and am plenty beefy for this, but after having a cylinder head almost crush my foot at the ripe ol' age of 15, I've hated it ever since. What had happened was the "pin" that keeps the center plate stable wasn't in, and as I started torquing the head bolts down, it spun around and dumped a 906 casting right where my foot was. I was able to move my foot fast enough to prevent it from getting crushed by the leading edge, but it still gave me a nasty bruise (and likely a broken toe or two).
Thankfully, this flip went uneventfully and I'll start making the necessary updates over the next few days...
