Load the Engine Into the Bus

Once the engine is on the hoist you can wheel it over to the bus. You need to get the bus up high. Really high. Almost unsafely high. Be careful. I got one side up pretty high on a jackstand and then used the vanagon jack to get the other side even higher. Even so, I felt the van start to roll off the jackstand raising the opposite side. I had to let her down a bit after that and put the other jackstand under the bus. I gave up trying to wheel the engine under the van while on the hoist rails. It isn't shown below, but I ended up sliding the whole engine assembly off the hoist onto the thick cardboard shipping crate on the floor. Then I gently pushed the whole deal under the bus, sliding it on the cardboard. Probably didn't do the pan any favors, but it seemed the only safe way.

Once the assembly was under the bus, I hooked it back up to the hoist as shown below. I double checked the security of the bus on the jackstands and crawled under to position the transmission on a small floor jack.


From there it was a matter of jacking, hoisting, cajoling and otherwise coercing the whole deal into the bus. It went slow because there are a lot of things to be checking on all at once. I did it alone, but it is better as a two person job; one underneath lining up the transmission and the other in back on the hoist. Finagling around the CVs was a little difficult, but overall the engine went in pretty easily. All the bolt holes on the cradle lined up perfectly.

There it is, bolted in and ready for wiring and hosing up! Pretty easy, so go make a cup of Yergacheffe and have a doughnut.