I have my old 3.8, trans and transfer case pulled out of my 2010 JKU, it wasn’t horrible, but I’m wondering about getting the new Chevy 6.0/6l80 back into it. I know motech says you can do the swap with the body on, but I think it would only take a couple of hours and 4-6 guys to get the body removed. Have any of you done a swap like this in your driveway? Any advise? I just think getting all of the wiring and exhaust fitted would be so much easier without the body.

 

Personally I would do it with body on again (like the first time) if I did another. Body off requires storage and really all I did was remove the front grille and rad frame and that engine went in in 10 minutes with a beer in one hand. I made a boat winch mount off the garage end wall, hoisted the engine and tranny coupled (no TC) and wound the hoist in slowly to bring the vehicle up beneath the engine. If I was doing it for a living then yes body would come off. I did most of the work with the front grille etc off then installed last. With the LT you use the original Jeep frame engine mounts so that takes the guess work out of everything. With your intended LS you need to cut them off and reweld new mounts on.
Another thing - think of 8 or 10 speed auto so they usually come with the LT 5.3 or 6.2 (2014 and up). The more gears are wonderful to offroad with and actually have a slightly higher numerical gear ratio than the 6 speed. The 10 speed is 4.7 1st and the 8 speed is 4.56 with 6 spd at 4.03.

 

I haven’t pulled a jku body nor have I done an engine swap on this platform. However, I can say that from a few videos I’ve seen about engine swaps, most of them pull the body.