Trying to drop a new motor into my 4Runner (98 V6 4x4) and having a heck of a time lining up the dowels and pushing the motor far enough in to get a bolt to catch. Tried for 4 hours tonight and got no where, any tips????

 

There is a whole folder of 3.4 Swap Questions might take a little reading but i am sure it has been covered

 

make sure the angle is the same where the engine bolts to the tranny, if it is a manual double check your clutch plate, i always use some realy long bolts, usually some old head bolts,bolted through the tranny to the engine on the bottom sides to help guide the engine and trannny together, it keeps them from twisting and also helps with the angle. then when you get it together take them out and put in the short bolts.

 

Paitence! Paitence! Paitence! Take your time and watch everything. Try to get it as lined up as you can.

Walk away from it and come back if you have to. That always seems to work for me.

 

I ran into the same issue when I did my swap. What finally worked for me was to take the transmission lose, on a jack, then I bolted the engine in on the mounts. Next, I used my engine hoist to pul up on the engine, just a bit, to stabilize it.

Then I spent some time playing with getting the transmission lined up and stabbed on. This is what worked for me, since trying to stab the engine onto the transmission simply wasn't happening.

I did use a couple of long bell housing bolts in the short bolt locations as guide "pins" to help maintain the transmission alignment. I did NOT use them to pull the tranny onto the engine (good way to bust a bell housing).

 

Is your truck a manual or an automatic?

The auto should slide right on provided the surfaces are parallel and clocked correctly. Manual can be alot more tricky and requires lots of patience. As was mentioned, do not use the belhousing to "pull" the engine and tranny together because bad things can result. Take your time and you'll get it eventually.