Upper bell housing bolt

Interesting. I had the same problem as you, but had different lengths messing me up. I had the longer bolts in the shorter holes and took a while to discover why I couldn't get them to bite.

Anyway, if it helps:

 

I appreciate this! I’m still not sure why the two bolts going into the starter won’t thread into the engine side with the transmission removed

 

You're welcome.


I here you there. It should be a piece of cake. Other than the length thing, the only real difficulty was loosening / tightening those top two. Just needed a longer extension.

 

Does anyone know what would cause the two bolts for the starter holes to not thread in? Logically it doesn’t seem that the likely cause is an uneven mating surface between the transmission and engine because they won’t thread into the hole on the engine side even without the transmission there.

 

Check the threads on the end of the bolts and inspect the threads in the engine block. They could have been damaged when you removed the trans especially if they were the last 2 bolts removed. If they are you're going to have to get a clean up tap for them.

 

If I do this, will I need to line up the transmission and the starter holes and tap all of them at once? Also, if you look at the circled hole in my picture earlier it almost looks like there’s no threads in the engine side hole

 

Looks to me that your starter is not aligned with the mounting holes. You have a through hole circled in red, but the threaded hole on the starter flange is not aligned.

 

You are correct, the bolt won’t even get into the through hole to begin with however :/

 

https://youtu.be/xtM1JaP2KPw?t=583

This video might help at the 9:43 mark that shows the bolt orientation at the starter. The bolt passes through the transmission bellhousing first, then the block through hole, and threads into the starter flange.

 

No. Just keep the tap straight when you do it. Don't cut new threads, just clean up the existing ones. Are you 100% sure the bolts go in the holes you circled? They almost look like alignment or dowel pin holes to me. Maybe the pins are on your starter?

 

Something is off if the bolts won’t even fit inside the through hole of the block. Will it thread in straight to the starters threaded holes? You might of damaged thr bolt tips if you used brute force. Inspect for damage but I have a feeling it’s a simple mix up of hardware.

 

looks like the starter is clocked wrong

 

I figured it out guys! There were two extra longer bolts unaccounted for that I didn’t put in my ziploc bag of bell housing bolts! Thank you everyone for your help!!

 

Glad you found them, l always make a bolt board out of cardboard to hold the bolts in the correct place.