Winter Work - '07 & '08

 

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Engine & Transmission Removal

The bad news was that the garage temperature was 6 degrees at 8:30 AM (1/3/08) and Al was due to get here at 10 AM to help me with pulling the engine and transmission from the car. So I fired up the old 55,000 BTU kerosene heater and by 10 AM it was about 40 degrees and by noon it was close to 55 degrees and getting too warm for the way we were dressed! That's about when the kerosene ran out but we were done with what we had to do. This was a first for me and I was glad to have Al there to guide me through the process.

I had spent the previous two weeks disconnecting everything under the hood as well as the hood itself.......which is now resting in the Living Room............God bless my understanding wife! It's pretty obvious what you need to disconnect to pull the engine........basically anything that will keep the engine connected to the car has to be removed, along with the radiator and the front engine cross member. Back in the car, the seats, carpet, dashboard support bracket and transmission tunnel all have to be removed. At this point the engine and tranny were drained of all fluids and the radiator and coolant were also gone.

I was lucky in that a local TR6 friend, Ivan Bailey, had access to a 3 ton engine crane from his cousin's auto body shop. To make life easier I also bought an Oberg Tilt Sling to make removal even easier. This simple and inexpensive device lets you control the angle of tilt with a 1/2" drive breaker bar. Al has pulled a bunch of engines over the years but after using this for the first time, he'll never pull another one without it.

The crane could lift the whole car! The Oberg Tilt Sling made it very very easy

I've never done this before so I relied on Al for guidance through the whole process. We hooked up the crane to the engine and took up the slack and then removed the jack stand that had been supporting the transmission. One of the tips I got from the Triumph Mail List was to protect the valve cover from the sling during the lift. The car was about 18" off the ground and resting on jack stands and we had about 6' from the top of the grill to the ceiling of the garage. The room need in front of the car will be determined by the size of your crane. We had about 6' from the front bumper to the wall which was plenty of room. I had loosened all the bolts holding the engine mount to the engine but discovered immediately that we'd have to remove the engine mount from the car too because the oil pan kept catching on the mount. Once that was done it was an easy pull.
 

Sling supporting the engine weight Wood block protecting the valve cover
Be careful that the bell housing doesn't bend the
throttle linkage rod
Tilted to clear the grill
45 Degrees clears the front of the car Leveled out and clear

Now that the engine and tranny were removed we had to put them somewhere and luckily I had "inherited" a furniture dolly from my in-laws when they moved. While we had the engine hanging on the crane we removed the transmission which left us with the engine and pressure plate still attached.
 

Almost on the dolly Now I can roll it around

Once we had it secure on the dolly we removed the pressure plate and the clutch which still had plenty of miles left on it. The only strange thing was a stamping on the flywheel.
 

Does this mean it's been lightened to 22 Lbs??

Engine cleaning time

Ummmmm...........nope. When I removed the flywheel, it weighted in at 27 lbs and 6 oz! After talking to some friends who are far more knowledgeable then I, I've decided that I won't lighten it but I will get a new pressure plate to go with the new clutch that's part of the 5 speed conversion kit.

And I thought I was being so smart putting the engine stand together.......real men don't need no stinkin directions! And then it didn't look quite right. Good thing I kept the engine attached to the crane.

 

This doesn't look good

Guess I better flip that support arm around.

Let's go change some Gaskets & Seals