shankster Report post Posted August 20, 2017 I just screwed up, I just need to know how bad I bought a cherry 2003 Escape XLT AWD V6 last month with a blown motor and just dropped a "new" motor from a 2003 Sable into it. Anyway, when I mated up the engine to the tranny I forgot to match up the studs on the torque converter to the holes in the flex plate before I tightened up the engine to tranny bolts. I realized what I'd done and loosened up the tranny bolts and separated the engine from the tranny a couple of inches then turned over the engine by hand till the holes lined up and was able to get the nuts on. I definitely tweaked the flywheel by mashing it against the studs - when I looked through the hole for the starter the flex plate was pushed hard against the block. It did spring back again when I loosened things up but not sure if it went all the way back to it's original shape. So I'm wondering if I did any permanent damage to the flex plate or the torque converter? Should I pull the motor back out and install a new flex plate? That would not be fun but it would sure beat re-assembling everything and then discovering something was wrong and having to start from scratch again (probably talking 2 hours vs 20 hours). Also, can the torque converter take that kind of abuse? I must have forced it pretty hard against the transmission. I recon this is probably something someone has done in the past - just wondering if that person is out there and if they got away with this? Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
