This is how the day started: steely eyed and ready to work. A little militant even. Get the truck back, deal with leaves, pull an engine.
On Friday, the tow truck people made an appointment for between 10~11a on Saturday morning. At 8a on Saturday, they texted me that they were ~90 minutes away. At 830a, the guy called me to tell me he was 10 minutes away. Breakfast got cut short - but the truck is home. She runs, but she is angry about it. My guess is water pump + the sympathetic damage to the serpentine belt.
Leaf collection is boring - but I did break the case on my leaf blower in the process. That added a nice rythmic 'wonk wonk wonk' to the process.
I got the hoist into place and ready to work. That is the short version. I really have a lot of space when it comes to parking cars in my garage. When it comes disassembling them - not enough. I hauled the gas tank and drive shaft outside into the front yard. I swapped out the janky front left "driving" wheel/tire for the janky "spare" wheel/tire and pumped that up. I made sure 3 or 17 times that there was nothing left under the car (almost forgot the stand that was propping up the back of the engine twice). And I lowered the car onto the ground. I moved my 150lb transmission back and forth out of my way about 5 times in the process. And I seem to have acquired a forest of stubby 2x4 pieces and other blocks of wood over in front of the car - so I tripped on that at least four times. I have made myself a fairly compact cleaning station out of a 5 gallon bucket, a big plastic tote. and a box of tools. That got stacked and restacked 2 or 3 times too.
Somewhere in there I realized there was no handle for the hoist - so I improvised with a crescent wrench. Eventually I switched to using a breaker bar for the pump. This was great EXCEPT - when you have weight on the lift and you loosen the valve screw with that wrench - there is no good way to close it again quickly. It is important to realize that you only need the wrench to open the screw but you can drop the wrench and close the valve with your fingers. It was pretty exciting a couple of times as the engine was lowering faster than I wanted and I was watching it while blindly trying to reattach the wrench to the valve screw. I started talking to myself as I opened the valve "crack it then use your hand - crack it then use your hand - crack then hand - crack then hand - crack hand crack hand crack hand ... easy does it sweetheart". I should 3D print a knob.
The engine mount bolts came off pretty easily. There was a washer on the bolt that I could not see and was stuck with grime to the mount - it came off after some coaxing with a screw driver. Really the whole lift was uneventful. The first try lasted about 2 minutes - as soon as I started to lift it, the beast wanted to tip down at the back - and peed another pint of coolant on the floor (How much more could be hiding in there??!!) So I put it right back down and shifted one more chain link to the front which was all it needed. Then I went at it again: I would lift a little, get up and trip over something as I looked to see that I was clear, lift a little, get up and trip over something as I tried to move the hoist back/engine forward, lift a little, panic as I heard a scraping sound which turned out to be that dang throttle level on the firewall, lift a little, panic as the engine freed all incumberances and then wanted to pirouette anti-clockwise because that is what suited the chain arrangement best - so I tripped again as I oriented myself to be able to steady it and work the jack at the same time. Eventually I got it all the way above the grill.
Once it was swinging free of the body, I wrestled the hoist+engine in a clockwise and back turn so it out in front of the car and lowered it so it was more or less level with the engine stand. I removed the 4 bolts from the inspection cover. I obviously knew it was going to come off when I took the last bolt out - and yet I still dropped it - along with another pint of coolant. Yes I know that photo is blurry ... it is because I was sobbing as I looked at the mess.
The bellhousing came off easy enough. It is also held on with 4 bolts and a couple of pins that are affixed to the engine. I pulled 3 bolts and put my hand under where the inspection cover goes as I pulled the last one. That didn't really matter because it was stuck in place. So I beat it with a rubber mallet and it popped off.
Then, as I was admiring the charcoal colored clutch & flywheel I began to appreciate how the bellhousing and inspection cover where squishy. Soft even. I said to myself "Self, what makes steel squishy? In 1962 did they have squishy steel? Squishy steel has a nice ring to it. I wish that had been my nickname in college." And that was when I noticed the grease. My goodness the inside of those things have a lot of grease on them. I ignored it for awhile - but somewhere in there I paused what I was doing and scraped a bunch of it off just so I didn't have to try so hard not to get it on me. There is still plenty more to scrape, but at least you can pick it up without touching playdough like nastiness.
The clutch is just 6 bolts and it drops right off. I need it out of the way so I can mount to the engine stand. It is a little rusty, but mostly looks like is was well due to being replaced. The flywheel looks like it is fine - just needs to be turned.
This is where the show came to a halt.
To the well initiated, you will immediately notice that the engine stand is missing four arms that bolt onto that plate and then reach out to connected to the engine block where the bellhousing used to be. Of course, I am not well initiated. So I spent 20 minutes pondering how I was going to defeat the laws of physics. Considering my squishy steel episode I did try stretching the plate on the stand. I contemplated pulling the flywheel, but I could not find anything that I could bolt to behind there either. I did find some more grease though. I picked up and put down the bellhousing 5 or 6 times to see if I could make it work if I put that back on (somewhere in there was when I got fed up and scraped - it is very theraputic). Nothing I could do or think to do was going to make those bolt 'tracks' align with anything that was where it was supposed to be. I felt myself scrambling and going no where.
So I called Doug and Other_Doug and learned I am missing the four mounting / adapter arms. [sigh]
That is the story of how my engine came out and got back into the bay over the course of 2 1/2 hours. I could have pulled the bellhousing and clutch without removing the engine, but then I would not have celebrated the joy of lifting my first motor. And I celebrated the joy of successfully remounting it. I am getting pretty good at that.
I can't seem to buy engine stand mounting arms - I could just buy a used stand from facebook marketplace, but without a pickup I can't really go fetch it. So I will make some arms out of square stock and use a stack of washers for bushings - next week.
You are getting quite an education. If you ever do this work again you will seem as wise as can be.
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