Engine drop questions. Roland please read!
 

I was reading some archives amd I saw a interesting post from Roland. His english is as bad as my spelling but here gos. Remove engine lid. Get engine hoist "cherry picker" and use engine carrier hole to raise car. I am thinking engine carrier would be the rear motor mount support and the hole would be the hole in the middle.So what he is saying is get some chain and hook up to the hole in the middle of it. Raise the car and put on jack stands remove what needs to be removed. Raise car again with cherry picker and lower on to furniture cart. remove tranny mounts and set on to cart. Remove rear engine mounts while engine is be supported by hoist. Slowly lower rear of engine to cart. Reinstal corner bolts with chain attached to corners and lift car. Then roll out motor.. Dos this seem right.

It's not complicated. After everything is unhooked and you're ready to remove the four engine mount bolts (two on the engine and two on the tranny), then lift the car...but only about a foot. Put the car on jackstands and put the tires, with wheels, under the rear door edge...just in case.

Put a furniture dolly and a piece of plywood over the saddle of a floor jack and put the jack under the engien case, about 4 or 5 inches to the rear of the tranny/engine seam. With the jack supporting the engine, remove the engine mount bolts. As you lower the engine, it will balance on the floor jack saddle when it is lowered enough to be horizontal. Now take the bolts from the tranny mount and lower the engine the rest of the way. It needs to slide slightly backwards as you lower.

Then, with the engine and tranny on the furniture dolly, raise the car and slide the engine out.

Boy, Superman sure makes it sound easy doesn't he? Feel like I could waltz on out and drop my engine after reading that.

....

Too bad I know it will never work out that way when I finally get around to (intentionally) dropping it myself!

Getting everything unhooked is the hard part. Having helpers is great too, since this engine/tranny thing probably weighs nearly 600 lbs. Last time I dropped mine, about 6 weeks ago, I had Tyson laying under the left side, and Bill (Tacoma911) laying under the right side making sure nothing gets hung up and steadying it. With a couple of helpers, it's really a snap. It can be done alone, though, it's just that there's less room for balancing errors.

If a guy were really worried about it, you could rent a big transmission jack. This way, you could dial in the angles, put straps around the engine/tranny....it'd be fool proof.

I drop them all the time by myself. I back the car up onto ramps and take off the rear bumper. This gives enough clearance to remove the engine out the back. I use a 3 ton jack with a homemade dolly made out of 4x4's and plywood. With the car on ramps, disconnect everything, then jack up the dolly until it takes the load off of the motor mounts. Remove the motor mounts and lower the jack while pulling it rearward. Sometimes I use a smaller jack on the tranny to help balance everything. It usually takes just under an hour to have the engine on the ground.

Good luck!
BK

I'm no pro at this (4-8 engine drops a year) but I'm always surprised by the varied techniques that require removing something like an engine lid or a bumper, using a 2nd jack or making a dolley. All I use is a good jack, some ramps, tall jackstands and lots of 2x12x18" boards that I stack to rest the engine on. The only special tool I have is a board for the lifting my 3.2L with little blocks fastened to it to straddle the case seam.
-Chris

I pulled mine for the first time in January and found it just as simple as Superman describes.....It's then I got into the "Ring agony" ground loop....no no I'm not started a new thread. I was really thrilled when I had dropped it. I was wondering if anyboby had modified a back end so the rear transverse beam was detachable, bolt in or something. Saw it once on VW's long time ago, but I guess torsional rigidity wasn't an issue with a bug.

Carb cars are easy
 

Drops on my '68 S require absolutely no jacking of the car at all if the carbs and fan shroud/ alternator are removed first. With the rear valence off, the engine is flat enough without the induction and cooling to slide right out from under the car, after the car conveniently raises its rear end up about 12" when the weight of the engine is removed via unbolting the engine/tranny mounts. I use a simple furniture dolly with the jack inserted through the middle. Only trick is to verify good balance on the jack during lowering. The exhaust can allowed to help keep the engine from tipping too far to one side, but I try not to let it support much weight of the engine and trans, as I don't like replacing broken exhaust studs. After separating the tranny while still on the dolly/jack combo (watch that balance), the hardest part of the job is the 2 man deadlift required to get the engine up onto the bench.

Re: Carb cars are easy
 

Are you serious, wow! Actually I removed my carbs prior to dropping only because I saw many posts about dropping unintentionally, so I figured I could mitigate some damage risk. I could see that the removal of the fan could have saved some jacking but I just so wanted to be part of the club and get the satisfaction of seeing it up there. It also makes it real easy to get under there and do lots of other stuff

email this dude:

PAUL_WILDING <PAUL_WILDING@email.msn.com>


He manufactured a plate or tray type thing that fits into floor jack that actually cups the engine and holds it in place on way down. I saw it on ebay and mailed him about it. Told him I would save his address until i got balls up to drop and fix a minor leak. I think he wanted like $100 or so. I'll go 50% w/someone on it?

Joe 68 L

I just had to get my 0.02c in here. I dropped my 73T engine single-handed easily, without ever having done this before. I had a 3-ton jack, ramps and a wooden pallet to rest the engine on (with a suitable cutout to slide the jack under). Here's a useful tip for those with a small trolley jack - when the engine is out, the loss of weight on the suspension parts will raise the car another 6 inches or so. **Make sure your jack will reach up this high or you will not be able to raise the engine enough to mount it again**. Of course, you can put a block between the jack and the engine case, but believe me, this just makes the job harder. One last thing that I found - you don't have to disconnect the starter motor cables (like the Haynes manual states). I spent a good deal of time trying to work out how to pull these into the engine bay before dropping the engine. Oh, and don't forget the grounding strap. Oh, and don't break the speedo cable coupling on the trasmission case (the place where I got the replacement end case said this was a common problem). I wish I had had the luxury of such tips.

Good Luck,

73T Targa
83SC Targa

I dropped my 3.2L on an 84 Carrera several times and each time I had two jacks, 2 stands (which were not tall enough), and everytime I did it all by myself. I ended up removing the valence and rear bumper to clear the car.

I also put the engine on two furniture moving dollies (bought at the local hardware store for <$20 each, with casters and carpeted planks) so that I can rest the engine on it, and wheel it out.

I was brave enough to put the engine back by myself once, but only once. It really is not safe by yourself.

While we are on the subject, removing the license plate panel from 73' and earlier 911's helps the engine drop process considerably.

I was considering dropping my 83' engine for a tranny rebuild. What body parts do I have to remove? Just the rear valence?

Does anyone have any opinions about the pros and cons of dropping the engine while leaving the transmission in place (besides the need for a new gasket)?

Thanks,
73T
83SC:rolleyes:

I also am no expert. But I have dropped mine 4 times. EAch time alone and each time I put it in alone:( that is the bad part about Porsche ownership in eastern Canada.

It really is not a tough job, so long as you take your time. I never had to remove the rear valance although I my try that next time, sounds easy.

I just wish I could have it so when I dropped the engine it "fell" right onto the furniture dolley. The way I do it now is to transfeer from jack to dolley (try that alone :eek: )

Shawn

We sell the engine adapter tool, check it out here:

http://www.pelicanparts.com/catalog/shopcart/ptoo/por_ptoo_miscel_main.htm

As for engine drops, all you need is the tech article on the site:

http://www.pelicanparts.com/catalog/shopcart/ptoo/por_ptoo_miscel_main.htm

or Chapter 7 from my book:

http://www.101projects.com

No further info necessary than that...

-Wayne