I imagine you may have to ground them on something!
But maybe not. Unknown

 

Quickest n easiest way to get it out of park would be like Les said. Unhook the shift cable from the trans.

 

Hahaha well, let's say I figured that one out the hard way. After more than an hour of trying to shift the damn blazer into neutral and with no easy way to ground those wires in my mind, I hooked up the battery to see what would happen. Nothing good happened LOL. I saw dash lights I have never seen before light up, I think every light on the dash came on when I HAD THE KEY OUT, then they would go away when I put the key in and turned it on. In the end, it allowed me to take the key out again but not to shift gears so I disconnected the battery as fast as I could. I just hope nothing is damaged. Then I followed this up with another maybe 30 minutes of prying around every part of the shifter to see how in the world it worked and at last found the override button, what a beyond stupid design, it's buried down low on the right, it's a small pin with a white roller on the end that you pull out and that allows you to shift. With this done I was finally able to move the blazer into the garage and drop the engine in. After it was in position it went in pretty smoothly, I ended up being able to get it in with both headers on, it fit like a glove. Both motor mounts are now torqued to spec and the engine is sitting in place! Now, I'm having a little bit of trouble lining up the tranny to the engine, it's very close, I have 2 bell housing bolts loosely in right now just the tranny looks like it needs a bump over to the left for the others to go in. Hopefully, I will be able to fix that tomorrow by loosening the tranny mount and moving it a bit.

 

Glad to hear things are progressing for you! FYI, the general accepted way is to mate the trans to the engine properly as the engine goes back onto the mounts. But who knows, you may be able to correct as you have planned by taking the trans mount loose. I've never tried that.

As long as you can get the starter in easily, then no big advantage to not having the passenger exhaust manifold off. Mine was pretty tight to the A/C case but mine is a 4 door and no body lift.

Please let us know how things go.

 

That looks absolutely awesome in there... great job with the rebuild and paint!

 

Whoo Hoo!

 

Thanks a lot you guys, Les I thought I had the tranny and engine lined up when I put it on the mounts but as I figured out this morning only one of the dowels was in place so I played around with it for a bit and got both dowels in then torqued the bell housing bolts (yes even the top driver side one). I have one more ground bolt to go then all the bolts will be back in the back of the cylinder heads. PS bracket is back home, now I'm really wondering about my torque converter spacing, it seems to be up as far as I can get it to the flexplate while it still moves freely, Les if you could have a look at the video below and let me know that would be great.

 

If you can turn it like that, you are golden! Good work!

 

Thanks for clarifying that Les, I'm almost ready to go now! I got a friend over to hold the crank bolt and torqued all the tc bolts, the exhaust is back connected, all the bolts on the back of the heads are in, the starter is in, and fuel pipes are in. I'm feeling like tomorrow I will be able to finish it up, hopefully I can remember where all the connectors go lol, good thing they can each only go in one spot. Now, it says in the manual to add an oil supplement to the engine oil, is this really necessary or would I be fine to fill it up with normal oil?

 

I think any good 5W30 oil would be fine. Sounds like the hard stuff is done! Looking good!