Engine Pull and rebuild tips.

douglas vincent · Post by **douglas vincent** » Thu Sep 23, 2004 7:18 am

I rebuilt the engine two weeks after I blew the piston. It cost only $275 for pistons, rings and a gasket set. Took about 16 hours to pull, tear, rebuild, and put back in and drive away. I put 500 miles on it and reinstalled the SC and installed a rrfpr which is what I should have done in the first place. While not super fast, it certainly is FUN! I am holding off on putting the big crank pulley on until I can get a J&S Safeguard unit from a NASIOC Member. I am running about 4-5 psi right now with no problems. I suspect I am in the high 15’s right now as is. I should be putting out about 155-165 hp at the crank. I may find out this weekend if they don’t call off the races due to rain.

Engine pull tips.

First off, if you are spending the time to pull the engine, I highly recommend replacing the rings and having the heads rebuilt. This adds about $375 ($200 for head rebuild, $115 for gasket kit and $50 for ring set) but then you have a close to rebuilt engine! Time added to the engine pull is only about 4 hours, but of course you have to count in the down time of having to send out the heads to be redone.

Ok, engine pull tips. Some of these are for when you are pulling engine only.

1- remove all wires. Ha ha
2- Cut off the gas lines. Serious. They are a major pain the ass to remove and then reinstall since they are so old. Just buy new line. REMEMBER WHICH LINE WENT WHERE!
While you can use "regular" fuel lines, you SHOULD use high pressure fuel line!
3- If you didn’t know, you can pull off the power steering pump by removing the three bolts from inside the pump pulley. Then you can set the pump aside without spraying fluid everywhere like I did the first time.
4- When pulling the engine, I like to remove the intake beforehand, since I am almost always remove the heads anyway. The reason I do this is because you can bolt an engine hoist 4-way directly onto each corner of the heads and easily and safely yank the engine. If you don’t pull the intake off, then you can still bolt on in various bolt holes, just not as easily. When reinstalling, it is easier to find and maneuver around in finding bolt holes with the intake installed just because you are not having to work around the engine while it is inside the vehicle.
5- When pulling the intake off of the engine, there are a few small water hoses that go from the intake to the block. Cut them off. The hose is old and tired. Just replace it. REMEMBER WHICH LINE WENT WERE!
6- Replacing the front, rear and oil seals takes about 1 hour max and $30 max.
7- I like using the spray copper gasket sealer. You spray it on all surfaces as added insurance.
8- DON’T put red locktight on Philip head screws. I unfortunately know how this turns out.
9- Air tools are awesome and save serious time, as well as just making things easier. Removing exhaust header bolts, as well as reinstalling them is a dream with an air impact wrench.
10- If there is any question about the cv boots on the drive side, remove the axel because a- you need to replace the boots anyway, and BIG B- the one nut that the is a real bitch to get at is guarded by that axel. Remove the axel and it is easy (or at least easier) to get access to it, both for removal and reinstallation. I am referring to the driver side axle
11- When removing the engine without the tranny, you need to jack the tranny up some, but you don’t need to remove any transmission bolts. You SOMETIMES do need to remove the pins connecting the axels to the tranny to allow the tranny to raise up. THIS IS AN EDITED TIP! I CURRENTLY DO NOT DO THIS!!!!
12- When reinstalling the engine to the tranny, and it doesn’t seem to hook up, make sure the engine and tranny are aligned AND PARRALELL. If they still wont slide together, rotate the crank and this will allow the gears to mesh.
13- Lube gears LIGHTLY with white lithium grease. Makes everything go together much easier.
14- When removing radiator, it is best (or easiest) to remove the upper hose from the radiator, not the block. If you can, and don’t need to remove the thermostat, remove the hose from the thermostat area. However this can be difficult if the hose it old. In that case, just unbolt the thermostat housing. Be Veddy Veddy careful, the thermostat bolts WILL snap with little warning. IF you can, REPLACE the thermostat bolts and throw away the originals.
15- Air conditioning? No clue, none of the cars I worked on had working AC.
16- ABS, as above
17- Clutch? Just read the directions. If you managed to pull an engine or drop a tranny you better be able to replace the clutch or I will smack you with a smelly dead fish.
18- Oh yeah, some more tips. The throttle cable and cruise control cable must be removed. CAREFULLY unscrew the two phillip head screws that hold the cables to the intake. Then figure out how they hook up. Reinstall is the opposite. This way you don’t have to fuck with the nuts that control everything.
19- When pulling the connecting rod pins, you CAN make the little pull rod to pull those pins. Or contact me. I will tell you how to make one for free. I will sell you one for money. Which is cheaper?
20- Head bolts are the multifaceted type. GET the right type of socket. If you strip the sucker, you feel like a stupid fucker.
21- Get used to an easy out.
22- An eight foot breaker bar is not excessive.
23- Get that rust break/bolt breaker spray and take a day off after spraying the shit out of whatever is stuck. An “easyout” is not really that much of an easy out when it is a huge bolt.
24- When you have replace the rings and/or pistons and/or heads, you need special start up mode to be in action.
1- remove the little areas above the fuel pump in back. Unhook those wire clips. This turns the fuel pump off.
2- Unhook the coil pack clip
3- Turn over the engine a few times to get oil back into the engine.
4- You DID add oil didn’t you?
5- Add the oil!
6- Repeat.
7- Hook all the clips back up. Start engine. Idle rev, Idle, rev. But not too long. Listen carefully. If you rebuilt or had the heads rebuilt, the engine is going to be noisier than hell. The tappets are starved of oil and it will take up to 5ish miles until they fill back up and start to be quiet.
8- Go to a remote area if possible and accelerate up to 50 and then let off the gas IN GEAR down to 30. Repeat for 5-10 times. This supposedly sets the rings.
25- Out of order again. When you pull the engine and heads apart, you of course have to remove the timing belt. Well, to reinstall the timing belt, you need to compress the timing belt tensioner adjuster. You need either a C-Clamp or a decent vice to do this. DO IT SLOWLY! They are $100+ new. They are hydraulically operated and must me compressed at about 128th inch every minute. Damn slow but cheaper than $100.
26- Get white out to mark the timing belt and the teeth from the crank mark.
27- Got to go. I will think of more stuff soon. Good luck

Added 6/28/05
28- When dropping the engine down, and the motor mount bolts dont want to drop into their respective holes, release the engine hoist pressure so that the engine is just barely setting on the crossmember. Now take a flat head screwdriver and set the blade against the bottom of the bolt where there are no threads. Whack with hammer. You should be able to push the bolt over enough to drop the engine down. Has worked evertime for me. I just wish I remembered this evertime instead of fighting it for 15 minutes!
29- When attempting to mate the tranny to the block, the best height I have found is with the motor just high enough so the motor mounts are 1/8 above the crossmember. Use a jack under the tranny to lift it up to match.
30- To fill the engine with water/radiator fluid, take the upper hose off, attach to the block but twist so it points up, and fill with funnel until full.

kidatari · Post by **kidatari** » Thu Sep 23, 2004 8:53 am

Excellent post! I printed it out and added it to my tech manual binder

vrg3 · Post by **vrg3** » Thu Sep 23, 2004 2:03 pm

Wow, great resource, Douglas!

A few comments:

2 - For reference, the fuel lines are 7.5mm. 5/16" matches pretty well. Be sure to get fuel injection hose, not regular old fuel hose.

4 - If you leave the engine intact, I think you're supposed to attach a crane to the little eyelet by the alternator and there's another one around the rear passenger side of the engine (I forget where exactly now).

5 - Can you use regular bulk non-molded heater hose without kinking it or having it rub anything?

9 - If you're removing a turbo engine without the transmission, it's easiest to leave the exhaust manifolds on. You should unbolt the downpipe from the turbo, and the downpipe may also have a bracket or two that you need to unbolt from the engine. If you're removing it with the transmission, it may be easiest to unbolt the downpipe from the midpipe.

15 - If the air conditioning system is charged, you'll want to unbolt the A/C compressor from the engine and swing it over to the side without loosening the hoses. It should be able to sit on a rag where the battery usually goes, after you remove the battery.

16 - ABS shouldn't affect anything.

24 - The way I would do the electrical part of this would be to pull SBF-2 from the underhood fuse box. That way the ECU gets no power, so the fuel pump and injectors stay off, and you get no spark. To be safe you can pull the spark plug wires so you can see if it somehow didn't work, but it does work.

25 - After compressing the tensioner, you need to stick something through the hole to keep it compressed. Some kind of hardened steel will be needed; maybe a quality allen wrench.

WRXdan · Post by **WRXdan** » Thu Sep 23, 2004 3:57 pm

One more tip for the auto guys. Be very...very careful when removing the engine and not the trans. the torque converter can easily back it self out. It hard to tell if it's coupled correctly as it is. As soon as I disconnect the trans from the engine I safety wire the torque converter so that it can't slide out. If it slides out of the trans input, kiss your trans pump goodbye.

WRXdan · Post by **WRXdan** » Thu Sep 23, 2004 4:01 pm

"15 - If the air conditioning system is charged, you'll want to unbolt the A/C compressor from the engine and swing it over to the side without loosening the hoses. It should be able to sit on a rag where the battery usually goes, after you remove the battery. "

This didn't work in mine because the hoses were too short. I had to pull the bolts out the EVP up front for more slack.

Post by **Legacy777** » Thu Sep 23, 2004 6:09 pm

WRXdan wrote:One more tip for the auto guys. Be very...very careful when removing the engine and not the trans. the torque converter can easily back it self out. It hard to tell if it's coupled correctly as it is. As soon as I disconnect the trans from the engine I safety wire the torque converter so that it can't slide out. If it slides out of the trans input, kiss your trans pump goodbye.

Yeah I noticed this when I removed the AT from my car.....I didn't really care too much since I was junking the tranny.

It's too bad I didn't have the room, time, and tranny hoist to just take it apart and see how everything works......

WRXdan · Post by **WRXdan** » Thu Sep 23, 2004 6:19 pm

[quote="Legacy777It's too bad I didn't have the room, time, and tranny hoist to just take it apart and see how everything works......

[/quote]

I have a couple spare 4EATS. I took them apart...not as bad as you think. I rebuilt my curent 4EAT, $200 for a kit is way better than 1G for a complete tranny.

tris91ricer · Post by **tris91ricer** » Thu Sep 23, 2004 7:40 pm

wow.. this all will come in handy next week when i finally get around to my engine swap.. of course, now i'm REALLY nervous about it. Nonetheless, thanks, douglas, for the comprehensive list... might make my job a little easier..
you rock, dude.

-=tristan

evolutionmovement · Post by **evolutionmovement** » Fri Sep 24, 2004 7:09 am

Mine sounded like it went easier as I needed no easy outs (though I did buy them ... Maybe that's why I didn't end up needing them). I concur on all the points. I also took digital photos of fuel lines and such for reference. The only other difference is that I didn't pull the pins to the axles. One has a torn inner boot anyway, but so far [knock on wood] nothing's wrong.

For the belt tensioner, I use a 1/16" titanium-coated drill bit. The allen wrench I tried snapped.

I also recommend that if you can't slide the engine on all the way, just pull it back out and start over rather than fight it all day.

Vikash - The lifting eye on the back of the engine is at the top of the bell housing.

Steve

douglas vincent · Post by **douglas vincent** » Thu Sep 30, 2004 7:29 am

How does something actually become "sticky". I think this is a great help for everyone and could be edited to be even better.

tris91ricer · Post by **tris91ricer** » Thu Sep 30, 2004 8:04 am

I did just post here and tell you exactly how great it was, douglas. did my post disappear? again? Josh!

vrg3 · Post by **vrg3** » Thu Sep 30, 2004 3:14 pm

A moderator has to turn it into a sticky.

I think this thread is as good a candidate as any for a sticky... Josh?

Post by **Legacy777** » Thu Sep 30, 2004 4:22 pm

91legacy_sleeper wrote:I did just post here and tell you exactly how great it was, douglas. did my post disappear? again? Josh!

Your post looks like it's there, two spots above

wow.. this all will come in handy next week when i finally get around to my engine swap.. of course, now i'm REALLY nervous about it. Nonetheless, thanks, douglas, for the comprehensive list... might make my job a little easier..
you rock, dude.

-=tristan

tris91ricer · Post by **tris91ricer** » Fri Oct 01, 2004 4:34 pm

notice the date. I had thanked douglas for his writeup cause it came in handy this week. no biggie, i guess, even though 'thank yous' are important... glad to see it got a sticky.

ok, i'm off to do the swap right now!
wish me luck! Thanks again, douglas!

-=tristan

douglas vincent · Post by **douglas vincent** » Wed Jun 29, 2005 5:53 am

A few more tips added today!

1-3-2-4 · Post by **1-3-2-4** » Sat Jan 28, 2006 11:00 am

WRXdan wrote:One more tip for the auto guys. Be very...very careful when removing the engine and not the trans. the torque converter can easily back it self out. It hard to tell if it's coupled correctly as it is. As soon as I disconnect the trans from the engine I safety wire the torque converter so that it can't slide out. If it slides out of the trans input, kiss your trans pump goodbye.

I hope I wont get flamed but I'm a little confsed does it have to slide out and fall or just slide out in order to break?

having not Split the engine from the 4EAT yet so I'm curious.

Post by **Legacy777** » Sun Jan 29, 2006 2:52 am

I believe WRXdan is saying that if the torque converter slides out of the input, and you hook everything back up and try to run it....you'll kill the pump.

1-3-2-4 · Post by **1-3-2-4** » Tue Jan 31, 2006 9:32 am

Thanks for clearning that up.

azn2nr · Post by **azn2nr** » Wed Mar 22, 2006 9:02 pm

so does the torque converter sit on the motor or on the trans???

napphappy · Post by **napphappy** » Wed Mar 22, 2006 9:39 pm

The TC has the pump shaft connected to it via a wire clip. So the TC is basically "sits" on the trans.

You have to unbolt the TC from the engine prior to removal of the engine. DONT try to pull the TC with the engine, its not worth it.

azn2nr · Post by **azn2nr** » Thu Mar 23, 2006 3:06 am

how do you access it to unbolt it from the engine???

napphappy · Post by **napphappy** » Fri Mar 24, 2006 7:26 pm

That little rubber cover that always gets old and hard. The one on the top, rear, passenger side of the engine block. You will need to put a large socket and ratchet on the crank pully so that you can turn the motor over to get to all Four bolts. Its not to easy. But not all that bad.

JGH_5 · Post by **JGH_5** » Thu Oct 26, 2006 4:39 am

make sure when you pull the (4) 12mm TC bolts that you use a 6 point socket not a 12 because I'm tellin you it bites a whole lot better and if you strip those little puppies it's a real nightmare. Also my 1/4 inch air ratchet fits perfectly in the hole and it has enough torque that you don't need to hold the crank still. If you don't have a air ratchet the 1/4 drive snap-on mini breaker (product #THBB10) is worth it's wieght in gold because it swivels 45 degrees past 90. Hope this saves some head-aches.

Stormer · Post by **Stormer** » Mon Jan 29, 2007 2:50 pm

Two things:

I used an offset wrench (the whole set now resides in my car) to remove the TC to driveplate bolts. To get better access, I unplugged the wiring harness from the intake manifold directly above it.

Also, that aggravating, hard to get at engine to transmission nut on the driver's side becomes substantially less hard to get at once you chuck it and replace it with a regular (not flanged) nut. My bigger offest wrenches have no trouble reaching it now. Personally, I chucked both of them off my car, so I'm using a 17mm wrench instead of a 14mm to turn them. Much easier.

0perose · Post by **0perose** » Mon Feb 19, 2007 10:38 pm

ok guys you'll probably kill me for this one...

what to do if we already took the torque converter off with the engine?

edit:

on the donor and swap car

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Engine Pull and rebuild tips.

Engine Pull and rebuild tips.