Monday, April 30, 2007

Step 3: Engine Drop!


Description: Disconnect and remove the engine
The basic premise is that you disconnect everything that attaches the engine to the car except the bolts for the engine bar and transmission mounts. You then put a furniture cart underneath and lower the car down so that the engine is sitting right above the cart with about a half inch between them. This requires you to take off the back wheels to get the car down quite low. This is a bit stressful and you should definitely use some 4X4 wood blocks to prevent the back break shields from touching ground. Then you remove the engine bolts, which should move the engine down to rest on the cart. Then you remove the transmission mounts from the back end. See my caveat below. At this point, you jack up the car and hopefully the engine doesn’t come up with it. Once it’s jacked up high enough, you can slide the engine out using the cart. You will need to move the CV rear axles out of the way as you pull it through. This will remove the engine, transmission and exhaust as one very big piece. Once you get it out, put the tires back on the car and lower it. That’s it.

Estimated time: 6-7 Hours

Tools Needed:
Just about everything from a metric socket and wrench set, up to 19 mm. A few screwdrivers. A rubber mallet. A socket wrench extender. A metric hex wrench set. Possibly a CV bolt remover (8 mm). Two Jacks. 3 or 4 jack stands, Some 4 X 4 wood blocks and maybe a small 2 X 4 piece. Also, something to secure your front wheels to prevent rolling while jacking the car.

This was certainly a more challenging procedure. I followed the Pelican Parts How-To Here is a link. Their checklist is also helpful.
Two other blogs have engine drop posts that helped me Here and Here. It's also good to have access to the Pelican Parts online pics for the procedure. We took several breaks to look at them, working the computer with my elbows to avoid getting it covered in grease.

Caveats/Tips:
-Don’t even try this with only one jack.
-I had 15” max height 2 1/4 ton jacks. These were not quite high enough and I had to improvise, which was a little stressful. I would imagine at least 17 – 18 “ jacks unless you are okay with putting blocks on them.

-Make sure you have the right tool to pull out the CV Bolts (I ended up needing only a hex wrench, but you might need a CV Bolt remover if you have 12 point bolts – if you do, don’t use a hex or torch wrench). Trying to find a CV Bolt remover at the last second at your local auto parts store is a losing proposition.

-An easier way to get all of the CV bolts off than the Pelican instructions is to unscrew the ones that you can easily reach (there are 4 on each side), then jack up the car enough to turn the wheel, which also rotates the the CV joint to access the others, then lower the car again to loosen them. Then they are all loosened before you jack up the car for the CV joint separation (Credit to Charlie for that innovation).

-There is no way to avoid ruining the little rubber gaskets when you separate the CV joint. They’re $3.95 to replace at Pelican parts, so don’t worry about it.

-Have your plastic bags ready when you separate the CV joints so you can get them over the joint before the grease pours out (This pic shows the CV axle in a plastic bag, but is from later when we tried to pull out the engine. You can see that the axle gets in the way. Good high clearance essential).




-After you pull out the little cone screws from both ends of the shift linkage bar, you might need to shift the car into a gear to get it to come out of the couplings.



-After removing the wheels, use 4 X 4 blocks to prevent the brake shields from touching bottom if you happen to lower the jack a bit too much. It’s good to practice lowering the jack before you get to this part.
-The engine bar bolt had nuts holding them in from above that you might not see. You can feel for them and they need to be held in with a wrench while you unscrew from the bottom. There is a similar issue for the smaller, hard to reach transmission mount bolts. A wratchet extender comes in handy for those.
-Make sure the tranny is resting on the cart before undoing the transmission mounts on the back of the car. Even a couple of inches can drop it hard on the cart. If you can’t get there by lowering the car, place a 2X4 on the back end of the cart to make up the distance.
-Have cold beer ready for WHEN YOU FINISH.

We had to do this over two days and spent a good 6 hours on it. If we did it again, I think we could do it in 3 hours or so. I think the 2 hour time estimate is a bit optimistic.

For more pics and some color commentary, visit my previous post here



Porsche Gutted

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