The Rover-Landers of BC

I went to look at an engine stand today. It was purchased from Napa. My concern is that the holes for the engine bolts to go in into are deeper than the engine bolts so there seems to be no way to fasten the nuts. Can I fit longer stud/bolts to the engine housing?

Yes, most of the engine stands I've worked with have this problem/issue/feature, depending upon how you look at it. The idea of the long standoffs is to allow you room for the clutch and flywheel on some engine configurations. I usually take one of the bolts into your local Acklands-Grainger and purchase a set of 4 that are long enough.

cheers, Dave

Thanks Dave.

Should I take the bell housing off and bolt the stand to the wngine directly or can I bolt the stand to the bell housing?

Bell housing? Or is it an adapter? Common on a lot of the 4 cylinder models is an adapter, which houses the clutch and flywheel. I usually start by removing clutch, flywheel and the housing on the floor as typically this housing has to be off anyway if you're removing the crankshaft or replacing the rear main seal. Also, it makes the engine assembly shorter overall, which means you're not gonna have as much weight hanging out (leveraging) the front putting strain on the stand.

I have, however, when building up an engine, built it as far as the bottom end complete, then using an engine lift, lowered it to the ground, installed the big aluminium adapter plate, flywheel, clutch, etc. then bolted the engine back on the stand to complete the rebuild of the top end. Usually when doing this, its a good idea to have a hydraulic jack at the nose end of the engine to support the extra leveraged weight.

Dave