[ernest62]

I just installed a small block 383 and a TH 400 tranny in my '62 Nova and the motor seems to be slanting backwards, however when you look at the tranny the pan is level. The tranny crossmember is installed so its not the transmission pulling it down. Any help on this would be great.

 

[Paul Wright]

Most engines are installed with a few degrees of incline. How many degrees is your engine? More than 10?

 

[D-Man]

A magnetic angle finder is your friend.:yes:
Stick it to your frame and then either to the oil pan rail or on your valve covers and see what the difference is in degrees.

 

[JRouche]

A magnetic angle finder is your friend.:yes:

Yes, but a digital protractor is yer best friend

And they are cheap now. Just bought two SPI units for not much on the enco site. Whats nice is you can snap a surface, say your frame, zero the display, even though its not parallel to the ground. Like you have the front or rear jacked up for suspension work, and then take a reading in reference to the frame to the block, control arms, drives shaft or where ever. And they spit out a nice number. Not like looking at a sliding line and kinda guessing.

And let me say, if you can, get a few points on your car that you KNOW are parallel to the earth. Then those points are called bench marks. I have a couple, for vertical front to back, and side to side. I always reference those same spots when setting up the suspension. How I got those spots is another long writing. But the calibrated starrett level came into play.

I used the gravity type protractors to weld in all my suspension parts way back when. But lemme say, I would toss them for the digital units now. So much more precise... And when it comes time to do your own front end alignment its easy again. So many uses. Nice to read degrees instead of guessing if the line on the mechanical unit is stuck a lil and is at 3 degrees or 2... IMO it belongs in every guys tool box.. JR