Major Problem # 2 & 3

The kit I used to put the engine in uses a balancer pulley. It's a combination harmonic balancer and V-belt pulley. He needed to use something like that because the clearance between the engine and frame is so tight that nothing else would fit. The engine I used has a composite timing chain cover. It's made from a much thicker material than the older stamped steel covers. the boss for the crankshaft seal is larger too.

The problem is that it's larger than the inside diameter of the balancer pulley. I ground a 45 degree bevel around the inside of the pulley out to where I started to hit rubber then ground off the unused crankshaft position sensor on the cover in an effort to get the pulley onto the crankshaft as far as possible.

It still wasn't far enough to clear the frame. I could have hammered on the frame enough to make it clear but there still wouldn't have been enough room to get a belt between them. The only choices were to notch the frame and weld on reinforcing metal or move the engine/trans even more to the left until there was enough room. (I couldn't go with an older timing chain cover because the bolt holes are different)

I decided to move the everything over to the left some more. Here I hammered the frame a little to clear the transaxle. I also elongated the slots for the trans mounts even more.

I also cut down one of the mount boses on the trans, spaced everything with washers and used an allen head countersunk bolt.

This leaves just enough room to squeeze a belt through the gap. But that caused the next problem.

The standard kit calls for you to move the engine/trans to the left around a half inch. Normally this isn't a problem because there are slip joints called tri-pots. They are designed to allow the ends of the axle to move in and out as the wheel moves up and down and they have about 2 inches of travel, leaving plenty of room even after a minor shift. I moved it so far that the bearings were at the lip of the housing even at the closest point. It would come out further as the wheel moved.

The kit maker has offest axles available when using a different type engine so I got a set of those. I didn't need quite that much shift but the tolerance of the tri-pots let me get away with using them.