Yanking out my motor!

[katsi]

Well, that did not sound right did it? Anyway, I'm going to be pulling the motor and transmission from my parts car this weekend and I've never done this before. Any advice to help guide me would be helpfull. The best way to learn how to is to just do it. But, I don't want to get hurt doing it. So, any pointers would be helpfull.

[mbouse]

well, you already have an experienced support group in your neighborhood. use them!

make a party out of it.

[narfire]

Need beer
then a support group to help
if anything like the group in SOcal, a chair for the director
a dedicate photographer.

Take the hood off,disconect at the flex disk/guibo, remove fuel lines, undo motor mounts,undo rear trans. support, exhaust, rad.hoses,electrical connections(battery disconnected, right )
The trans and engine can come out as one,but there is a bit of an angle so some room below the car is nice.

[mdrburchette]

Go ahead and pull the radiator too. I make sure my car is high up on jackstands so I have enough clearance for the shifter. Don't forget to unhook the wires to the starter. You will also have to unhook the centerlink on the left side. Ron always ends up under the car to guide the transmission through while I work the engine hoist. Looks dangerous, huh?

[mbouse]

then... ack! you forget a wire or two, especially the reverse lights wire on the tranny. and of course, you test the tensil strength of the remaining wires, like the mag pickup, and the heater coil hoses; as they were forgotten the first go round.

har har har... throw a party, and give everyone a corner. it's a parts car after all.

[katsi]

Well, It was a lot easier that I expected. I took about 2 hours to free the transmission from the clutch, speedometer, mounts and driveshaft and pull the motor and tranny out. Maybe I got lucky but it seemed like she just wanted to come out. I do have to thank my buddy John E. for helping out (you can just see his arm in one of the photos). I hope the dash works ou for you man.

[pope]

Can you give us some additional info. Did you remove the radiator? Did you have to jack the front of the car up higher to get it out? Anything else.

[katsi]

Pope,
If you look at the picture, the radiator is out, the intake is out and the master cylinder is out. I actually started this car as a project to fix up so, I pretty much had the motor stripped down. I did not understand so much about spiders last year when I purchased it. I have really learned alot in the past year about Fiats and 124 spiders. The car in the pic is a 79 just like my white one. It had way too much rust to finish. I'm supprised the tranny did not just fall to the floor on it's own. Although, the cross member is really solid and their is absolutly no rust on any of the shock towers or engine bay where the steering components bolt up. The floor pans could have been fixed and even the transmission tunnel too but, it was unseed frame damage that ultimatly made me abandon this project. That and I found the white one for $1,200.00 and drove her home. But, the motor fired right up every time and the gears went in really smoothly. So, I am saving all her parts to keep the white one on the road. I intend to take everything apart for both salvage and learning purposes.

Parts taken off and used on white car so far:
Hood
Steering wheel
distributor
radiator
altinator
breaks
Misc bolts here and there
Water T fitting

[katsi]

Sorry Pope, the car was about 2 feet off the ground on 4 jack stands with the wheels removed. It seemed to produce plenty of clearance. When we started lifting the motor, I would lower the scissor jack we had supportint the transmisson untill every thing hung freely. A small tug (very small) downward of the rear of the tranny freed up the stick shift (we removed the plate sorrounding the stickshift as well). After that we just backed up the stand as much as we could and started lifting the motor up (you have to clear the steering arm). The angle seemed to just right it self as we lifted and as soon as the oil pan cleard the front beam of the ingine compartment, we moved the hoist back again. Then one of us got inside the engine compartment and lifted the tranny up a bit and we rolled the hoist back once again and snapped the second pic. To be honest, unbolting the guibo was actually more difficult than removing the motor and transmission.

[katsi]

One final thing - when separating the motor and transmission, make sur you remove the metal dust cover. That took us about 20 minutes to figure out why they weren't separating. We took off the cover and the tranny slid right out.
OOPS!

Also, it seems to work better to side mount the motor on the engine stand. That way you have more access to the important areas. All you have to do is take off the right enging mount and use it as a template for your mounting plate. Drill out a hole and then use the exhaust head bolts to mount her on ther stand. Be sure to weight down the front of the stand though as it tends to move the weight back. I just used one of the wheels.