Notes on first engine drop

[tahoe_snow]

With the help of my father and friend (who is a serious restorer), we dropped the 3.2 out of 911 yesterday in about 4 hours.

Here are a couple notes for anyone doing this for the first time:

We did it my garage w/out a lift. We used 12ton jack stands (which are super stable) and the 500lb hydraulic table both from harbor freight. The 500lb table had no problems holding the engine and trans, and is 2 inches shorter than the 1000lb table, which is why we used it.

We were able to get the car high enough with my crappy 17" lift floor jack, a few 2x4s, and the jack pads sold here. With that said we removed the air intake and MAF sensor to get the engine to clear under the car (it had to come off anyway). A high reach jack (at least 24") would make the job easier, and I'm now looking at the AC jacks sold here.

We pulled the tranny and the motor at the same time. I know Wayne recommends just pulling the engine if you don't need to work on the tranny, but getting the bolt off behind the starter must be a real PITA.

Once the tedious job of disconnecting everything was finished (putting it back together should be interesting), we put the table under the engine and blocked a couple 2x4s under the back of the engine to compensate for the angle of the car. Once the motor dropped down a few inches, we used the jack to level the motor on the table.

The easiest way to clear the 1/2 shafts was to start moving the engine from under the car. We didn't try to clear them vertically, but horizontally.

The only real problem we had was the throttle linkage got caught on the left shaft, and I had to remove it with the motor 1/2 out of the car. Lesson learned on that one.

Other than that, it is a tedious job to make sure everything is disconnected, but totally doable in your garage. If you haven't done it before I highly recommend you have someone there to spot the motor as it is lowered. I couldn't have done the job myself this time, but I suspect after some more practice I could.

[Targa Me]

Congrats on dropping the engine yourself, it'll get easier and easier each time you do it.
I have a couple comments for you:

1. If your hydraulic table has a 500 lb capacity, pulling your engine and trans at the same time is right at the limit of your table or maybe a little over, depending upon which trans you have; 915 or G50.

2. I have always pulled the eng/trans together, its easier, in my opinion.

3. I use an ATV jack for lowering the eng/trans (small dolly supporting the trans) and I lower the eng/trans with the car close to ground level that way its not at such an angle. Then once the eng/trans is resting on the jack, I lift the car. Using an ATV jack to drop your engine is definitely a one man job; although a helper is always nice.

There are a lot of "while the engine is out" projects you may want to do. I'm sure if you do a search you'll find a list of things.

[tahoe_snow]

We realized we were cutting it close on table capacity, but the 1000lbs table was about 11 inches high which would require getting the car pretty high up to clear. Overall I felt the table worked pretty well.

[dhagood]

i pulled the engine/transaxle unit from my car by myself using an atv jack and a dolly i made. i don't consider it at all noteworthy given what people regularly post on this forum. the big thing is to make sure the engine/transaxle unit is stable when it is being raised and lowered. if you can figure out how to do that (and there are any number of posts here on how to do just that) then it is not a problem.