new toy

hello, I just bought my first jeep and is it a basket case lol. It is a 60 willys cj5 and I bought it in pieces from a guy who had intentions of fixing it up. He didn't get much further than the tear down. I am going the other way. I put a new set of pro comp 2.5 lift springs under and am now puting the motor back in. I am not sure how to procede, it had a 350 chevy in it. I plan to stick to that motor i bought weld in motor mounts because old ones were shot and the engine sat to the left side. is this ok can i run it that way? I planned to by fender headers and am curious if the motor sitting off center will mess that up. I doubt I am the first one to run into this and hope to get some advice.

 

I can't really help but there areseveral guys here running small block chevy's that should be able to help. Warlock, Nickmil and several other will probably chime in. One problem you will encounter is the distributor being rear mounted, You will have to knotch the firewall or move the motor forward.

 

The sbc should have a bit of a left side offset unless the D18 transfercase has been swapped for a 20 or 300 and centered rear diff (the stock 134 was also offset). It really does not cause any significant problems unless you are running fenderwell dump, long tube headers. In that case, if you run anything bigger than about 32" tires, the left side tire will hit the headers at full left turn and bottomed suspension on 2 1/2 lift springs. There was a thread a few months ago on either here or JF concerning the alignment issue. Personally, I really like the D18's because of the overdrive option and they are about as tough as either the 20 or 300. The D18 will have no problems handling the 350.

It takes a bit of work measuring to get the engine and drive train parallel, but it is not difficult and it does not need to be perfect. The place to watch will be the front driveshaft clearence at the bell housing and starter. If you use one of the smaller aftermarket gear drive starters, it will be a non-issue.