Quick Q's Re Engine Drop

[jyl]

A couple of quickie questions. I'm disconnecting stuff to drop the engine the weekend. It is an 89 Carrera.

1. How do you disconnect the ball end that connects the throttle rod from the throttle linkage arm? Does the socket just "pop" off the ball? I tried prying, a little, and then wondered if I was damaging something. Edit: I searched, read, and am more puzzled - one post says to muscle away with a plier, another says there is a secret pin to remove (which I don't see).

Edit: deleted Question #2, I found the answer by searching. Gonna buy the ATV jack.

3. In the Bentley that came with the car, the P.O. has written to lower the engine/trans 12" and then disconnect the clutch slave cylinder and the wires to the starter. Okay?

Thanks!

[cstreit]

A 10mm open end wrench works well to pop it off. THere is no secret pin or holder. Place the wrnech tines between the ball and cup and lever it off. Should pop off reasonably easy...


An ATV jack makes it easier, but I bolted a 2x6 that was about 16 inches long to my jack, the balance point of the motor without trans is about 2-3 inches in front of the sump plate. Balance point with the trans is just about at the front of the case...

[1974carrera]

Chris' technique of using the two tines of the open end wrench to lever the socket off the ball is good for removing the throttle rod...if you use something like a scrwewdriver (for example) the socket tends to rotate some instead of popping off...should come off without too much force.

On my 2.7, the balance point with the trans attached is about half way betwixt the sump plate and the front of the case. I've never dropped or installed the engine with an ATV jack so can't speak to that...it always seems quite secure sitting on the saddle of my floor jack, using a piece of conveyor belt rubber of thick hunk of newpaper to cushion and conform to the load...and I like the flexibility this gives me to tilt or rotate slightly while lining up the mounting bolts.

[jyl]

Thanks!

Thinking out loud here . . . I need to think about how I'm going to lower the motor. Hmm. The car currently may not be not high enough on its jackstands to extract the engine/trans - I have appx 29" from floor to lower edge of rear bumper valance. My floor jack ($150 HF aluminium model) doesn't jack very high (I already had to stack two 4"x4"s between the engine case and the jack saddle to do this much) and anyway my front spoiler is already touching the floor.

The bumper is still on, believe it or not I can't get the bumperettes off, despite removing the three nuts, tugging, prying, and hitting the bolts with a hammer - did some ^&3#*!&!! glue them to the bumper when the car was resprayed?

The thing is, I don't really "need" to pull the engine/trans out from under the car - I'm doing all this just to get at the trailing arm bushings / bolts (!) so if I can just get the engine/trans on the floor under the jacked-up car I'll have the room I need. I guess I can do that and then do things smarter next time I have to drop the engine/trans.

Mulling . . .

[VenezianBlau 87]

John:

Just did my first motor/trans drop two weeks ago. I simply removed the small nut just aft of the ball socket since I was afraid of buggering up the ball socket thingie. Check your two plastic bellcrank bushings as my inner one fell out in pieces. Weltmeister makes metal replacements but I replaced with OEM plastic from our sponsor.

Oh, and next time I will bleed clutch slave cylinder before installing trans.

I also found that if you disconnect big rubber boot at the gearbox side you'll never get it back on the flange!

Guys on here warn to be careful not to strip trans mounting holes in body when cinching things up. I can see now how it's very easy to do! You should be able to finger tighten. The board saved me on this one since the two bolts will start threading crooked very easily.

Good luck!

Bob

[jyl]

Done - finished disconnecting stuff last night and got up early this morning, dropped engine/trans. Went very smoothly, don't seem to have broken anything. I'm rather surprised . . .

Now do finish my rear suspension refresh and resist the "while I'm in there" temptations!

Thanks, everyone!!!