There may come a time when you have an assembled engine ready, but the car may not be ready to accept the engine. You could leave the assembled engine on an engine stand, but if you are like me there are other engines waiting to be assembled. You need an engine storage stand that will allow you to bolt a complete assembled engine to it and be rolled somewhere for storage. The engine storage stand I will be building is for a SBF (289,302,351W,351C,5.0) but the same principles apply to any engine. You will need an engine, or preferably a bare engine block to use as a jig to build the stand. The first step is to cut and drill some 1" x 1" x .125" angle iron to bolt to the motor mount bosses on the block. The bosses are 7/16", but I drilled them to 1/2". You can now bolt the pieces of angle iron to the block: The next are the rear uprights. They are made from 3/4" x 16 gauge square tubing. They will bolt to the outer most bellhousing bolts. They are also drilled with 1/2" holes. One of the uprights is 7/8" longer that the other. If building a stand for a different engine, the height of the upright will need to be determined so the oil pan will clear the ground, and the stand: The main framework is next. I used 14 gauge x 1" square tubing. The main rails are 22" long, the front cross piece is 11 3/4" long, and the back piece is 18" long. I used some scrap pieces that were not long enough, so I welded a few pieces together to get the lengths I needed. Square it all up and weld it up: The frame work is centered on the two rear uprights, and two front uprights made from 3/4" square are cut to 10 1/4" long. Everything is now tack welded on: I made a diagonal brace from 1/2" square tubing to keep everything square: Weld everything you can with the stand still bolted to the block so nothing will move around. You can now weld on some 2" steel casters to the bottom of the stand. Stay away from the rubber casters because the rubber will fail under the weight of the engine. I got these at Home Depot: A little paint, and it is ready for service:
Nice writeup, thanks. I'd also point out that the block is completely disassembled. There's always a risk of parts getting caught in the welding current flow and binding or distorting. I've seen it on Corvair block repairs... Makes a nice paper weight.
