Pulling engine -- Tips?

[cb900f]

Hello all! I'll begin pulling my engine out this week. 2013-A6. It will be in the garage with an engine hoist. Any tips?

1. Out the top is really my only option.
2. Do I need to pull the radiator or can it stay?
3. Anyone make lift attachment points for the motor, or is it ok to just use intake manifold holes?

Any links or adviceplease put them here. :read:

Thanks,
:beer:

 

[Tx5.0]

Pull the radiator as the engine will move forward as its unbolted from everything. Using the two holes in the front and two in the back will be fine. Thats where I lifted mine from since I'm not balling out of control enough to have a lift in the garage.

 

[JUIC3D]

Load leveler and as TX5.0 said, use the front 2 and rear 2 holes and it's a pretty easy job. The harness stays attached to the engine and unplugs near the ECU.

 

[corepwn]

Radiator can stay, just be careful as you lift and have a hand on the front of the engine while it comes up and out of the bay until it clears the radiator. The engine mounting brackets can stay for removal but need to be taken off for re-installation. Don't forget to disconnect or remove the front O2s. The engine has to be lifted an inch or three for the AC compressor bolts to slide out.
Getting to the starter, use about 20 inches of 1/4 extensions and come from the front of the vehicle.

 

[cb900f]

Good stuff all. Keep the helpful hints coming. I'm running a TT kit, think I can leave the manifolds/headers on? Or shall I kill a couple of six packs and remove them before taking it out?

 

[corepwn]

Stock manifolds come out and go in with the motor, I can't say for anything else.

 

[slagburn]

You will be able to pull it out the top with turbos and turbo manifolds still installed no problem. Lots easier to deal with the manifolds when the motor is on a stand.

 

[gimmie11s]

Hello all! I'll begin pulling my engine out this week. 2013-A6. It will be in the garage with an engine hoist. Any tips?

What did you end up doing for a motor? Watched your last vid of when it popped.

 

[the5]

Dont forget the ground strap on the firewall

 

[cb900f]

What did you end up doing for a motor? Watched your last vid of when it popped.

Holcombe Motorsports will be putting in sleeves and rebuilding the motor. I don't want to have to deal with it again.

 

[ford20]

Here is how I did mine from my build thread:

So what is faster than a coyote? A Road Runner! Now what happens when Wile E. Coyote gets his hands on one of these puppies?

This happens ….

​

I think we all know what comes next here. So I got an engine hoist and started with taking the engine out of the bay. Mind you I am very much a greenhorn who has never done this stuff before so I plan on keeping a detailed account of what I did so hopefully people will be able to reference my stupidity and learn what not to do, but mostly so that I have a reference of everything that I did if I ever need to look back and figure it out what I did wrong. That being said, safety first! At pretty much all times I had my 3 ton jack, jack stands, engine ramps and wheel chocks under the car just in case one of them failed and it sort of caused a chain reaction. It might be way over kill but I didn’t really like the idea of a Ford casting number imprinted onto my forehead for quite some time.


First, I started by removing the stock air box and the air scoop that attaches to it. The little snorkle is a giant pain to remove due to the fact that it is secured from the very top and the very bottom and in order to get it out you have to push in on both sides at once. I ended up using a flat head on top and a plastic fastner remover on the bottom and a lot of elbow grease. After that I drained the coolant from the radiator. Now the petcock is under the access tray and because I have a Laguna Seca I also have to deal with my front splitter covering that access tray, so there are 4 screws that attach the splitter to the bolt holes for the tray. In order to remove the under tray you have to remove the bolts red. I ended up trying to remove the all of the bolts and after removing that last one in red the tray just sort of fell out and almost wacked me in the face.

From there it is pretty self explanatory. You remove the upper and lower hoses from the radiator to the engine, the 3 hoses that connect to the degas bottle, and the coolant lines into the heads. Because this is a Boss 302 (this also applies to track pack cars) I have the oil cooler which uses the anti-freeze to try and keep the oil cool. There are two hoses that extend out from the lower radiator hose that connect to eh oil cooler. I removed those two and left them connected to the oil cooler. After that I disconnected the electric fan from the radiator and pulled it out to give me a little bit more room. After that I took off the underhood covering and removed the two lines that connect the windshield washer squirters to the windshield washer bottle this way I can take off the hood and pull the engine out that way. At the end of the day I was left with this.

​

Next step after that was to remove my intake manifold. The procedure is basically the same for the Boss 302 and for the Stock intake manifold. The intake manifold comes off and from there I started out from under the car. First we removed the A/C Condenser and pushed it off to the side and out of the way. You can go ahead and just cut the A/C belt as you won’t need it. After that I removed the starter. There is one bolt on the top of the starter that is slightly hard to get to so what I ended up doing is getting it a couple of extensions and getting at it from the front of the engine. Don't forget about the ground strap since it is a bit of a pain in the ass when you have the engine lifted up in the air. Speaking about ground straps, there is one that is attached to the drivers side head and the cowl that needs to be removed as well. Just take off the two plastic screws, lift the cowl and unscrew it. After that we decided to take the alternator off the block. I was having a really hard time getting the connector to come off of it while it was on the engine so since I would have to take it off anyway I decided that I might as well do it then and there. The alternator came off and I went inside the car and unbloted the 2 nuts for the steering shaft boot behind the pedals and proceeded under the car to remove the bolt at the U-joint of the steering knuckle. Be sure you just mark it real quick this way you know the orientation in which it has to go back together. I pulled it in a little bit and laid it off to the side.
After that I tackled removing the nuts to separate the cats from the exhaust manifolds. As luck would have it I was able to get 3 of the 4 nuts off and ended up rounding off the 4th nut. That wasn’t too big of a deal for me since I just grabbed a sawzall and cut the ball clamp after the cat and pulled on the clamp until I was able to remove it. From there I unbloted the motor mounts from the frame. Contrary to what the workshop manual says you don’t need to remove the engine support insulator brackets. From there I was in the home stretch and started removing all of the electrical connectors that were left on there. There are two bolts at the very front of the engine just below the oil pan that are holding a wiring loom on so you just have to unbolt those. In retrospect the hardest ones were the front O2 sensors and wiring connectors that pin to the bottom of the oil pan. If I had to do it again I would just unscrew the O2 sensors from the bungs and leave them sort of hanging on the top of the bellhousing. The pins that connect to the oil pan I would think you would be able to take off when you start jacking the engine up which would give you a little bit more room to get under there and pull them out. There are 2 on the passenger side and 1 on the drivers side that has to be removed. BTW I would highly advise having a plastic fastner remover for this job. It came in handy a lot of uses times and you don’t damage the Christmas tree pins when you take them out with this. After that it was time to remove the hood. So I took out the screws and laid it down on the lawn for the time being. Once I got everything out of the way I removed all the bellhousing bolts and we were separated from the transmission …. Sort of. I will get back to that in a minute. I hooked up my load leveling bar and the engine hoist to the top two bellhousing threads and to the very front two threads at the engine sort of like this.

​

It took another 2 hours to actually separate the engine from the transmission. I put my jack under the bellhousing and from there it was a long process of jacking up the engine and then slowly lowering it and jacking it up again and lowering it again and jacking it up again and lowering it again (you get the idea) until I was able to have enough daylight to get the very tip of a flathead between the bellhousing and the dust plate. After many back and forth sessions and lots of shaking and banging wedges into the opening it was finally free and we were clear to start taking it out of the engine bay. Now because I still had the cat still attached I had to jack it up and tilt it all the way back but it is certainly very doable if anyone should ever need to do it. When you are pulling the engine out just be careful not to hit the radiator. I’m sure that would ruin your day lol.

There it sat for about a day or so until I was able to get it bolted up to the engine stand.


Obligatory empty engine bay shot.

 

[cb900f]

You will be able to pull it out the top with turbos and turbo manifolds still installed no problem. Lots easier to deal with the manifolds when the motor is on a stand.

Quoting you as hopefully you know the answer to this. Motor is seized b/c OPG broke. Cannot rotate the motor to take the bolts off the torque converter. Will I damage anything taking the motor out with the converter attached to the flexplate?

Thanks!

 

[cb900f]

Quoting you as hopefully you know the answer to this. Motor is seized b/c OPG broke. Cannot rotate the motor to take the bolts off the torque converter. Will I damage anything taking the motor out with the converter attached to the flexplate?

Thanks!

Talked to Blake and he recommended pulling the trans and motor at the same time.

 

[DSargent09]

I saw you sold the roush blower. What are you going to run now?

 

[Torchy]

Talked to Blake and he recommended pulling the trans and motor at the same time.

Did you get it all pulled out?

I am literally in your shoes. I have hellion twins on, Blake is building my motor and I am puling mine in about a month. Doing it in my garage, only difference is that my motor didn't blow. I plan on leaving the headers on but taking the turbos off since they are only attached by one easy to get to V-band.

 

[cb900f]

Did you get it all pulled out?

I am literally in your shoes. I have hellion twins on, Blake is building my motor and I am puling mine in about a month. Doing it in my garage, only difference is that my motor didn't blow. I plan on leaving the headers on but taking the turbos off since they are only attached by one easy to get to V-band.

I have an A6, and couldn't turn the motor over to loosen the torque converter. So I had to pull the OPG off to get it to turn over. Just need to separate the converter and trans and I should be done. Hopefully friday!

 

[gimmie11s]

Come on slacker! That turd of an on3 car needs to be back on the street asap.

PM me some details of your rebuild and the price if you don't mind.

 

[cb900f]

Sorry, didn't see this. It's an on3 60mm kit.