What is the best way to remove the enigine from a Sierra without the use of an engine hoist if possible?

Is it best to remove the engine & gearbox complete or to split them?

Richard

We put a jack under the engine and cut the car away from it then lifted it onto a sack truck to move around.

I raised the front of the car with 3 tyres under each side, just behind the front arches. This pivoted the front of the car up enough to be able to slide the engine and gearbox out on a jack.

We lifted ours out with an engine crane complete with gearbox, see pic to the left!! Following the Hanes manual, worked fine. If you do it any other way remeber how heavy it is, you don't want to drop it on your foot, or crush you arms etc, or damage the engine/gearbox...

[Edited on 7/7/06 by Bluemoon]

Ideally i want to leave the front wheels on so i can wheel the car outside (currently in the garage) to remove the rear axle

I'd recommend hiring an engine hoist - if you've got the means to carry it back and forth. They're very big and heavy!

David

I think you might have to use a crane to keep the wheels on, we hired ours, only 12 quid for a weekend.. Worth it for a peace of mind I think.

Dan

Does anyone know the rough weight of a 2.0 pinto with or without gearbox?

I'm looking at get some castors to make a platform to support the weight of the engine and then cut the front away from the Sierra and wheel the engine out

Bluemoon, where did you hire that from, was it a local or national hire place, the cheapest i have found is £30 for a weekend

Hi. I bought an old block and tackle from a car boot and secured it to the ceiling of my garage (wooden) with a 4" RHS steel beam. It was sturdy enough to take the weight of the engine, gearbox and the whole front of the car (I wondered why the engine wasn't coming out then noticed cars wheels were off ground!?). I would think the pinto and box are getting on for 200kg (just a guess) but too heavy to man handle alone without lifting equipment.

I used the block and tackle quite a few times getting the engine in just right so I would think about investing in a second hand hoist or block and tackle as they are very useful.

Other advantage of block and tackle is it doesn't take up any space as it is hanging from ceiling, this is particularly useful in a small garage. You just have to position the joist well when fixing it originally to ensure you can get the car fully underneath it.

We removed all the ancileries as they were coming off anyway to be re-cond, removed the Cylinderhead to make it lighter and then lowered the engine onto a piece of carpet, put the trolly jack under the footwell area and jacked the body up...... then just dragged the engine out from underneath

what i wanted to do was exactly what you said, lower it onto a rolling support and wheel it from the front.

i found two big problems with that. first you cant cut out the entire front of the car as it is part of the backbone of the chassis, so when cut, a: you cant tow it and B: the chassis will flex when jacking it up.

the other big problem is that the engine rests on the front axle crossmember and that has to be cut too to lower the engine.

the weights are a bit rough but should give an estimate:

engine: 140kgs
engine+gearbox: >180kgs

imho the safest, fastest option is the hoist. seriously, dont beat too much around the bush with this.
i even built my own hoist and it gave me not only the hoist, but i could practise and perfect my cutting, measuring, and welding skills which i find very useful now i'm starting the chassis build

We didn't cut anything off the front of the car, we just dropped the engine straight down and jacked the car up high enough to clear.

We'd maybe already taken off the front wheels and Crossmember as we needed them for our build anyway. So it would have to be removed by a Hi-ab etc anyway

The engine was already unbolted before jacking the car up that high do I doubt the chassis flexed and if it did it was being scrapped anyway.

Local company in Oxfordshire I'm afraid, worth ringing around all the tool hire places in the Yellow pages...

I already had a steel beam in the garage roof so i just cut away the front crossmember and lifted out the gearbox/engine complete using a puller type winch - yes i know people say this is dodgy but in truth it works fine!!

have now replaced the puller with an electric hoist from Macro (£40)

In addition to raising the car and dropping the engine I actually lowered the engine gearbox with the cross beam still complete. Pulled the lot out removed the cross beam and put it back on the car to wheel out for the scrappie.
This is a 2.9 V6 with auto gearbox as well so not as light as your pinto set up.
I have also made up a board with casters on it to wheel the engine in and out of the garage, wish Id had this to slide the engine from under the car.

quote:

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Originally posted by rpsmith
I'm looking at get some castors to make a platform to support the weight of the engine and then cut the front away from the Sierra and wheel the engine out

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u2u sent

I thought I would manage without an engine hoist as I got my engine already out of the car, so OliW a freind of his and me managed to transfer it to a engine stand from the back of my Rangie. I started to get in trouble when i was aligning the engine to the chassis to make the engine mounts, after much heaving and swaering I managed to lift the engine on its stand onto some wooden blocks to get it the right height.

The trouble really started when I had made up the engine mounts and wanted to take out the engine stand to set the gearbox. As soon as I let the weight of the engine onto the chassis one of the supposed 400KG Stanley saw horses broke and the whole front end crashed to the floor! I recovered this by making a short set of sheerlegs from some handy scaff bar and used my trusty 200KG ratchet strap to lift the whole thing level again so I could put another trestle, ALDI metal one this time, under the front.

So by the time I had to take it all apart again I decided that discretion was the better part of valour and went and got myself a cheap (£100) folding engine crane, a machine mart scratch and dent job.

I have had to move my project mid build and the crane made loading the engine into the land rover a 5 minuite task, stuffing the folded engine crane in beside it however was hard work!

So the motto of the story is get yourself an engine crane you will find it very necessary later on in the build when you are heaving the engine in and out of the car to fit all the bits and peices around it and maing it work. The folding type don't take up much room and do appear in local ads fairly often sometimes as cheap as your weekend's hire though you might need to get the hydraulic cylinder re-sealed at that price.

Good luck

Caber

heres how i would do it.

Loosen the nut on top of the shocker, inside the bonnet. Its easier now than when its in the air and free to spin. Jack the front crossmember and sit it on two axle stands. Rear wheels obviously chocked etc... Undo the 4 long bolts that hold the subframe up to the chassis. Remove the front wheels, cut the brake pipes, remove the 4 bolts that hold the arb to the car, fully remove the nuts on top of the suspension columns. Also the gearbox support thing at the back. It will need supporting... Jack the subframe up, remove stands, drop it down. Then jack it back up a few mills, support it again, and remove the jack. Then jack the car up really high. Obviously things like the exhaust will have to come off. Might help if you get the bumper off. Try to get the car high enough to clear the engine. Then get a few friends, drag it all out from under the chassis, lift it off the subframe and reassemble the suspension.

Alternatively, i have a hoist in wetherby you can borrow for free.