I have completed the swap of my old 4.7 with a new one from an '03 Durango. Hooked everything up and started it up, no problems with starting. Kicked over after it got fuel. THe only issue I am having now is my oil gauge is not showing any pressure. I ran it for about 15 second and shut it down. SO, unless I am wrong, I either have pressure and my gauge is not showing anything, or worse, I have no pressure and my gauge is right.

I left the '03 Durango oil pressure sending unit in the engine I put in, so tonight I am going to swap the sending unit with the one off of the original motor and see what happens, and I am also going to try and track down an oil pressure gauge to hook up to the sending unit's spot and see if I have pressure or not.

Unless I am wrong, it is mostl likely the sending unit, gauge, or the relief valve is stuck open on the oil pump.

 

Hopefully it was just the sending unit. Did you get it all figured out?

 

Yep, figured it all out. Stupid me. It was the sending unit. I didn't know they changed the type of unit in the '03 Durangos so it all plugged in fine but didn't work. I freaked out thinking I was running the engine with no oil pressure. D'Oh.

Here it is when I first bought it. Got it for $750 with the trans and transfer case off CL. Said it had 40,000 on it.



Here is a picture of the engine after I did a little cleaning on it.



Here it is getting set in. Too bad now all the plastic garbage on top covers it. I can only see the orange dipstick.

 

Thats beautiful! JK One damn good looking engine.

 

Thanks. I am pretty happy with it. I rattle canned the 318, decided to try the POR15 engine enamel on this one. I liked it a lot. I am going to do a write up this week on the POR15 paint and then work on a larger one for the 4.7L swap.

 

I may have missed it but your just swapping out an old 4.7 for another? Any mods on it? You had a missing bolt or something with the old one right?

 

Yep. Swapping one 4.7 for another. I bought this 2001 Quad Cab off of somone who overheated it and the engine had a knock. I should add I got a great deal on it, the seller knew the engine was shot. I sat on it for a while and came acrossed an engine on CL but it was out of an '03 Durango which uses an NGC ECM, while my '01 uses a JTEC ECM. The tone rings are different. Not a huge problem except that the crank needs to be taken out to get to it. So I took out both cranks, swapped the tone rings, and reassembled it. When I got to the last connecting rod I saw this...



A flaw in the machining of the connecting rod from my new engine, so I couldn't put it back together like that. So I tore it apart again, swapped in a new rod/piston assembly. They come as a non-servicable set from Dodge for $150. Put the new piston and rod in, closed it up combining the best parts from both engines, and swapped it into the '01.

The missing chunk of metal in the connecting rod really wasn't expected. I am glad I found it, but it was a real bump in the road. I ended up deglazing the cylinder, putting a new bearing in there, dropping in a new piston (broke one too, expensive mistake). All stuff I had never done before, but I learned a lot.

No performance mods. Parts for this 4.7 are way too expensive for my taste. I will save all my performance mods for my 318.

 

Oh okay Cool! There is nothing like doing your own work!

 

Yep, and after I called some rebuilders to ask for parts, like connecting rod bolts which are TTY and absolutely should be replaced, they told me they never replace those bolts. Or any other bolts in the engine for that matter. Amazing what shops do on a regular basis.

Makes me feel a lot better knowing I not only did it myself, saved money, but also that I did it the right way.