I had a freeze plug blow in the back part of the engine. Me and a friend dropped the tranny, replaced freeze plug, easy fix. Hooked everything back up correctly, and now it idled very rough and dies when I put it in any gear. I had a few fuel injectors I needed to replace so I thought it might be that, I replaced them, and a distributor cap which was cracked, and still it runs terrible and keeps dying. It is also backfiring for some odd reason to which I don't know. No crossed plug wires, spark plugs are fine, I'm pretty sure it's not the timing because we didn't really mess with the timing that I know of. If anyone has any information on how to fix or troubleshoot I would GREATLY appreciate it. Getting very tired of messing with this old truck.

 

Welcome to DF!

Right behind the passenger side head, between the block, and trans, is the crank position sensor. They tend to get destroyed if folks R&R the trans without removing it first. I would start by pulling it out, and having a look. You have all the symptoms of a broken sensor.

Welcome to DF!

 

definatly agree with hey you, and to go a step further, that crank sensor is triggered by the windows on the outer diameter of the flexplate, i hope you didnt use a long screwdriver in those windows to to rotate the engine over to get the bolts out, if so, you may have( warped ) or messed up the tolerance required for the trigger point..

 

I replaced the crank sensor before we put the transmission back in because the wires were starting to come out of the harness. So It's got a brand new crank sensor.

 

Was it in there when you installed the trans? If it was, then you need to check it.