Engine / Gearbox Removal

[Jim Haseltine]

I cannot believe that it's over 5 months... how time flies when you don't have any. Well, inclement weather, illness, family problems and pressure of work has delayed things a lot - not helped by the tendency for scope creep - "I'll take a look at this while I'm at it". The car has been back together for a month or so, being run for short periods so I could check fluid levels and leaks - it took a while for the PS pump to prime properly but after that everything seemed fine - with the exception of prodigious clouds of blue smoke from the exhaust. Knowing that most of my neighbours would be away over the christmas holiday I figured that I would wait until then to run the engine to operating temperature and burn off the last of the oil.
Oil level fine, coolant level fine, battery a bit low but the car started (just) and ran - no leaks. And better, the oil smoke cleared quickly.
Today when charging the battery I took a look at the coolant level, topped it up then noticed coolant running past the battery charger. Oh great.
Even better, as far as I've been able to trace it so far it appears to be coming from almost directly above the oil pipe on the front of pump module which makes me suspect that the 'connecting pipe' hasn't seated properly - although why has it waited this long to start leaking?
This is going to be fun.

[Jim Haseltine]

<Duplicate post>

[welwynnick]

I feel for you Jim. A couple of years ago I rebuilt the turbos in my Merc S600, which is generally considered an engine out job, but which I did by removing the subframe instead. I think I was the first person to do it that way. Still difficult though. I put it all back together, and the turbos were fine, after burning off a bit of oil.

I drove it out the garage, and as soon as I turned the wheel, steering fluid pissed all over the drive. I'd forgotten to tighten the steering pump outlet pipe. You guessed it, its completely inaccessible, and I had to drop the subframe all over again.

I suppose the best lessons are learned the hard way, and that ain't gonna change.

Nick

[Superflyte]

The write up is awesome. I'm going to be having a crack at this task soon, and was looking for info. It's a shame that all the images were hosted on photobucket, as they're not visible anymore.

I wish someone had have turned this into a pdf !

[Jim Haseltine]

Installing the right browser extension allows you to see the Photobucket pics. Took me two attempts to find one that works with my version of Chrome.
And the pics lose the Photobucket watermark too.

[Jim Haseltine]

Oh I do love a good joke. I've been through the ElsaWin procedures which cover removal of the water pump a number of times. They're pretty much drain coolant, disconnect these hoses, remove thermostat cover, remove oil feed pipe, remove pump cover. There's mention of disconnecting one of the big multiplugs on the radiator but other than the lower auxiliary radiator there's no mention of removing the radiator or the oil coolers.
Well, I might be tall but I'm on the skinny side yet there's no way I can get to some of the fixings - one of them I can only just see with the aid of a mirror. I've had some sort of respiratory infection since christmas eve and haven't the energy to struggle with this so I'm going to pull the bumper and radiators to give me more elbow room.

[welwynnick]

Well, I might be tall but I'm on the skinny side yet there's no way I can get to some of the fixings - one of them I can only just see with the aid of a mirror. I've had some sort of respiratory infection since christmas eve and haven't the energy to struggle with this so I'm going to pull the bumper and radiators to give me more elbow room.

Doing difficult things the second time is always easier than first time just because you know where all the fasteners are AFTER you've removed it, and have the benefit of hindsight.

So if I can't see something, I do a google picture search for it, and get to know what it looks like first - know where the nuts, bolts, screws, connectors and release clips are etc.

I used to have a Rover 3500, where if I removed a few easy things, I could actually stand inside the engine compartment. Those days are long gone though.

Nick

[Jim Haseltine]

3 hours this morning. It maybe that I don't need to take the radiators off, certainly there's considerably more access with the bumper and LH inter cooler removed. My sticking point is now that it looks like the hose clip for the thermostat housing top hose must have jumped when I refitted it a few months back because there's no way I can get any of my clip pliers onto it and I can see that the factory alignment marks don't line up. Best thing, there's an aircon hose in just the wrong place so it's going to take some thought.

[Jim Haseltine]

Well, it would have helped to have had 4 hands but I got the top hose off thermostat in about an hour.
The bad news is that the radiators are going to have to come off or at least move forwards by a couple of inches but I doubt the hoses will allow that.
And now it's raining (again) so that's today written off as far as this job is concerned.

[Jim Haseltine]

I gave up trying to work without room to swing a cat and removed the radiators. Not only does the ElsaWin method suggest that you don't need to but there's also another piece which either I don't understand or is incorrect. When you've removed the thermostat cover, the pump top hose and 7 screws (one torx for a bracket, two torx holding the cover to the block and 4 stainless allen sockets holding the cover to the pump back plate which appear to be a tad larger than 4mm), the instruction is to rotate the pump cover anti-clockwise then forwards to remove.
Well, can anybody spot the problem?


Yep, this bracket.

And you can't get to the rear of the two lower screws. The cover seemed immovable so after checking that there weren't any other screws I thought that as the cover had been there since 2008 it wasn't going to let go from the back plate easily - it took around 20 minutes gentle use of a lever and a dead-blow hammer to gradually ease it to a point where I could rock it around by hand and then I found it was being held by the connecting pipe - the pipe which I'd thought wasn't seated. Once I had the cover off and the pipe out I found what I think is the source of the leak.

I'm not surprised it's damaged, I had one hell of a job refitting the oil pump. Anyway, new pipe fitted (I hold my hands up to having thought I could get away with reusing the original pipe when I did the oil pump - maybe that was part of the problem), pump cover replaced (new sealing ring as per instructions and it needed it, the old one was rock hard - and the one on the thermostat cover wasn't much better.
I got to the point of refitting the oil coolers by the time it was too dark to work so packed in . Today is written off thanks to storm Ciara.

[ATinOf]

The write up is awesome. I'm going to be having a crack at this task soon, and was looking for info. It's a shame that all the images were hosted on photobucket, as they're not visible anymore.

I wish someone had have turned this into a pdf !

If you ask nicely I could find the time to rectify this, depends how much of a rush for it you are. It s not a quick fix!!

[zex]

Search Google for Photobucket Hotlink Fix - Chrome Web Store and install it in Chrome. After that you will be able to see all photos in this thread

[c3nturi0n]

hi Jim,

from your experience, how long would it take to remove the engine and put one back in?

As I'm now planning to keep my car for foreseeable future i'd like to tackle this job (via a garage) and would like to know effective no. of hours required to quote me for the same (and i know it won't be cheap ).

Cheers.

[welwynnick]

As I'm now planning to keep my car for foreseeable future i'd like to tackle this job (via a garage) and would like to know effective no. of hours required to quote me for the same (and i know it won't be cheap ).

Isn't that your silver car back up for sale this week?

Nick

[Jim Haseltine]

How long? Awkward question. There are a number of factors to take into account, not the least being that I was taking my time, was working outside with little space and the car on stands. I have about 3' between the front of the car and a wall, similar distance behind it to another wall and the same (at best) to the right where there's another car. It's only to the left of the car where I've got unrestricted access. Lifting gear was a decent trolley jack (3 ton I think) and an engine crane. I also had to knock off from time to time so I could source tools which I didn't have. And then there were things like having to cut off the exhaust sleeves and dealing with a difficult positioned bolt that I'd stripped. Ignoring breaks and other times when I wasn't actually working (neighbours do insist on talking) I'd say it was over 30 hours spread over a week and a half, maybe two, to get the engine out. Working inside with space to move, a post lift, all the tools to hand, an assistant when needed AND having done the job once already, I could take at least 10 hours off that, maybe even half it.
But that's taking it out and remember, although the engine was free, I never moved it away from the car, I just slid it back, lifted it and bolted the mounts into place after I'd taken the manifolds off then dropped it again later to refit them but I also removed other things (like the oil tank so it could be repainted) which don't need to be touched if you're just dropping the engine. Putting it all back in place properly took at least as long as taking it out - and that was before I got around to filling the fluids.