Possible to assemble engine on floor?
 

I've been pricing engine stands, adapter rings and engine cranes and it adds up pretty quickly. Since I will only be rebuilding one engine, is it possible to do this right on a clean floor without a proper stand?

yes. just torque it right and do it.

easier to do it up on a strong bench as it saves your back. Gets old working on the floor.

A friend of mine who, in an earlier life, rebuilt hundreds of VW bug engines told me he rarely used a conventional engine stand. He used two or three closed top 55 gallon drums arranged side by side, each with an engine sitting on top. The drum tops were slightly depressed and had a small screened hole in the centers. He said you could disassemble an engine at desktop level, spin it around easily, spray clean, slide an engine from one drum to the next and all waste fluids drained into the drums. He told me the drum technique allowed him to rebuild engines in very little space anywhere on the shop floor.

Phil

I got a bench top stand for $30 from jcwhitney. Does make it easier but you need a pretty strong benchtop.

drhttp://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1080999845.jpg

There are times that you need to rotate the engine like when dropping in the crank. Also, when you are ready to put the case halves together, you have a finite amount of time to complete the insertion and tightening of the case bolts. Break down and buy a fixture.

You can use a light duty VW one ($30) until you start to assemble the heads, That's when the thing starts to get heavy. You might carry it over to a sturdy spot somewhere on a crate or bench where you can hoist it down later.

I supported mine on the outboard end when it got heavy.

Thanks for the info. I've decided to buy an engine stand and the adapter ring and to rent an engine hoist. Btw, if any of you are looking for an engine hoist for a good price, Canadian Tire has one just like this on sale until April 8 for $250 CAD. It's not shown on their web site but the item number is 09-1086-2.

why do you need an engine hoist? am i missing something?

dr

Um, 'cause I have no friends.

http://www3.telus.net/public/alpine65/RedForman.jpg

I just phoned a rental place, I can rent an engine hoist for $30/day so that's what I'll do.

ask the UPS guy for help, do you live on an island? Really, two guys can lift a TIV no problem. My gardner helped me.

dr

I wish.

You don't need to rent anything. This will get you by if you have a beam anywhere overhead. I lifted a Chey engine with one of these once. Not my idea of real safe, but I proved it would do the job.

That would be a simple and inexpensive solution but the ceiling of my garage is just plywood (I guess) covered with stucco. The only thing up there is the guides for the garage doors and they wouldn't support 300 lbs.

Well, I am 5'10 and 170 pounds and I can lift my engine without the sheetmetal on it by myself, I wouldnt want to do it much but it can be done. In a pinch. Two guys could do it completely assembled. Trust me, I have done it several times. Besides, there really isnt anyway to hook up an engine hoist to the engine when it is assembled, not safely anyway. I do have one but that is for the big V-8 engines, I cant lift one of those alone even partially assembeld.

I assembled my case on the bench and then lifted it on to a furniture dolly with small casters. Then I bolted the rest of the parts on and wheeled the engine underneath the car. Pretty easy one man operation.

Neal

Hoist... that's funny ...r ight?

The T4 engine rebuild video starts with an entire engine on the engine stand. Since my 2.0's dry weight is 321 lbs, it would probably take two guys to lift the engine and one guy to connect it to the stand or I could do it myself with an engine hoist. I'll remove the cylinders and heads first and then try to mount the case to the stand.

Alfred,
If you are in the SF Bay Area and an OK guy, you can borrow mine.

Tim, thanks for the offer but I'm a thousand miles up the coast from you. I do think that I'm an OK guy, though.:)

sounds like your stuck on that hoist:confused:

keep in mind that you can remove most of the ancillary parts on the ground and then lift the motor. I removed all the tin, alt, cooler housing, ignition, and intake first.

anyway, have fun on the motor. I am doing my first one now and basically it is an excercise in cleaning grundgy parts and then packing them up to send out.

Next step is buying lots of parts and then spending weeks making sure you put them together right.

Rocker geometry, deck height, end play, etc...http://www.pelicanparts.com/support/smileys/loki5.gif

There's lots of good information here and on the ShopTalk forums about these procedures. Whenever I find some good info, I print it out, punch it with a three-hole punch and stick it in a large binder. That information plus my factory manual, Haynes manual, Tom Wilson's book, my Auto Service and Repair books from vocational school and the T4 rebuild video and I'm ready to go. Oh, and my Engine Analyzer software too! Lol!

Alfred, What part of BC are you in?

I'm in Victoria, if you need help.

PS: attach the yoke from the engine stand to the engine, then lift it onto the stand. Hadn't seen it mentioned thought I'd add mt 2 bits worth.

Conrad, thanks for the offer. If I take the heads and cylinders off my motor first and then use the method you suggest, I won't have any problems.

Heya Alfred
I'm in the middle of a 2.0 project right now, and disassembled the entire mess on the floor. When it was down to the case halves only, I "hoisted" 'er up and put 'er on the bench - it's very light at this point.
You can assemble it carefully on a bench (I'm making a jig out of 2x4s to cradle it on it's side while I put the crank/cam in), and swindle a buddy into helping you lower the finished deal onto a floor jack, then he can help hold it while the tranny is put on as well. Find a piece of plywood to maneuver it around on too, like in Wilson's book.
Most of mine looked like it was dredged from the Titanic too - it was like a WWF episode, with me trying to wrestle crusty pieces off it as it skidded around on plywood and oil.
Gud Luck!
Jeff
:D

Scooter311,,, If your going to rebuild your engine without a stand, I'd like to share my expereince with this... when you need to put the crank in, and assemble the case halves .You will need to turn the engine on its side.. this is where the problem is. the cylinder studs are sticking out. I found that a upside down milk crate was perfect.. the studs would slide through the hole (grating) and the cylinder base side of the case would sit flush and hold steady.. allowing crank,cam and other case half to be installed with ease. Oh ,and save that crate,, it worked great when I needed to place the transmission face down.. while changing broken intermidiate plate bearings and cracked end cover.

Save your cash for all the crazy parts you are going to buy. I lifted mine several times, my wife and I can handle a 1.7 fully dressed, no problem. Leave the flywheel off as long as possible.

Don't waste your time trying to rebuild it without a stand. You will want to flip it back and forth, work on it at various angles and have it be secure when you wield a torque wrench.

The poorly written blah blah that follows is from a reply to a PP BBSer ages ago who asked me about my stand.


... I was planning to post instructions on how to build the stand on the PP BBS, but haven't yet found the time. The flaw in the design is that the flange on the engine stand is too wide where it meets the flange on the case, it interferes with the rearmost cylinder and with the tin. The solution in my case would be to simply cut a semi circle (say a 6" radius) out of that flange where the middle 'arm' meets the flange.

Here are instructions.

I had a local metal shop chop some off cuts into 2 squares, these (one for sure) should be no larger than the outside diameter of the bellhousing flange on the case. (I made mine too large.)

Have them cut a circle in the centre of each of the squares, just big enough to fit onto the case flange.

Scribe lines marking the the centrelines of each side.

Scribe lines on either side of one of those centrelines, spaced for the OD of the pipe that will fit your engine stand.

Cut the gap for the pipe, and radius all of the corners of the plate.

Centre the non-gapped half of that plate on an engine case half and mark and drill mounting the mounting holes.

Drill holes in the pipe for the locking pin and turning rod thing on your stand.

Weld the pipe in place. I built scrap wood fixtures to align and centre everything.

So, at this point you should have two square plates with rounded corners and big holes in the centre, one has a gap in one side, and the other has an identical gap with a stub of pipe welded into it like a lolipop.

The pipeless plate has the cut line scriped to make the middle 'leg', or two legs if you wish. Cut along the scribed line to free each leg.

The other plate has the cut lines scribed to 'fold' the plate in half.

Don't fold it, cut it. jig it to 90 degress and weld it. Then weld the third (fourth) legs in place.

You're done.


Dave



http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1081214737.jpg

Holy cow! A milk crate! Cool idea, thanks. I wish I knew how to weld too, I'd get myself into lotsa trouble.
DDS that looks VERY sano, and you could eat lunch off those cases too, if you were hungry.

Thanks, Gotta work clean. I didn't weld it, I had it welded by the guy who welded up my 914. There are pleny of places who will lay bead for a few bucks if you jig the piece up for them. Only takes a minute.

Dave

Alfred1,
You do know the engine is removed from under the car.
Results for many can't be wrong. The best method is:
http://www.pelicanparts.com/techarticles/914_engine_drop/914_engine_drop.htm
using all threads and two funiture dollys. Very cheap but more importantly, very safe. Your worry of if you could lift the engine by yourself is even a better reason to follow a tried and true method.
Once your obtain your parts ($$) and bolt them on the engine, an unstable work surface is also very risky to self and $$.
Bench engine stand that again many have used is safe and helpful and cheap ($15-20). Try this site:
http://www.empius.com/e/enginestand.html
Luke, use the fork!.
L. McChesney

Thanks lmcchesney. I actually removed my engine from the car a few years ago and did a top-end rebuild of sorts by having the spark plug holes helicoiled and then I lapped the valves. I'm pretty sure the motor has over 100K miles on it but it would be interesting to see how well it runs now even without a complete rebuild (it only ran on three cylinders when I dropped the motor).

Don't mean to be rude. Just don't know everyone as yet.
Grasshopper learn from Master.
L. McC