HELP! 05 2500 Express Van issue...

[jaded13640]

I've got an 05 2500 Express van in now and here's the deal with it.

 

The bell housing bolts kept falling out so the shop the owner sent it to knocked out the dowel pins and put big bolts through with nuts, and torqued the hell out of the remaining bolts and probably also used red locktite on em to keep them from falling out again.

 

Right away my thought was, "we've got an incompatibility going on here. Maybe the torque converter is for an internally balanced engine but the engine is externally balanced or something. But the only bolts that were falling out were the bellhousing bolts so that was my initial thought.

 

Then I find out that at some point the transmission went out and the shop he took it to told him it was a rare trans and hard to find.

 

I did the body off deal to make the motor removal easier, which it did by the way, got the motor out and is on the floor.

 

Right away I notice that the flex plate has two holes that match the flange but have no bolts in them. Also, right away I noticed that the engine has a threaded hole at the very top of the bell housing flange but there is no hole in the transmission for it.

 

The van appears to have a 6.0 gas according to the sticker on the air cleaner. However I believe the engine has been in and out a couple of times so I can't swear to this. More than likely it is a 60 though.

 

How do I go about confirming compatibility? Where are the numbers that identify the engine and the transmission?

 

Is the engine internally or externally balanced? There's always the possibility that it has the wrong harmonic balancer on it as well although I doubt it.

 

It's looking to me like they found a transmission that would mate up and function but there's something different about it, again maybe the converter, that's causing this.

 

I refuse to just extract the bolts, put new ones in and put it all back together only to have the same damn thing happen. He brought it to me because I won't screw him and everyone else that's touched the thing appears to have done so.

 

I want to do this right.

 

As mentioned, the van's in the stall, body in air, engine on the floor in front of it. So, the entire workshop is pretty well tied up until I get this squared away meaning I can't make a dime in the mean time.

 

So please keep that in mind. I need info as quickly as possible. I'm doing this more as a favor than anything else and can't afford to have it cost me too much work in the mean time. He's a bowling buddy and I definitely want to help him out but there are limits.

 

Thanks in advance,

 

Wayne