They had a hell of a time removing all the mounting brackets/braces/gussets for the axle mounts. John said it was the most reinforced front end he ever seen. Give him a break as he normally works on Jeeps. Once the frame was cleaned up for the motor/axle mounts:
Then nestled the 5.3L in the engine bay:
Then the Scout Dana 44 solid axles got new internals and upgraded alloy shafts/rotors/brakes to handle larger tires:
As you can tell, the tires barely fit!
Even with that kind of lift, the oil pan was too close to the front axle and needed to be shortened a bit:
Then the locking hubs were installed (for streetability - wife still wants to drive it)!
Got the gauges installed:
Continued in next post
Sam